Everybody across all
If only people would tell the truth in these discussions, it would save so much time and effort. The endless evasions and concealments just prolong the misery.
THE new head of the UK’s human rights watchdog has said she will “endeavour” to protect trans people amid the ongoing row over access to single-sex spaces.
What does that mean? Protect them how? Nobody is trying to beat trans people up, so what kind of protection do they need? Spell it out!
Mary-Ann Stephenson said she is keen to “uphold the rights of everybody across all protected characteristics”, having taken up her role as Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chair at the beginning of December despite a campaign to block the appointment.
Which rights?
Spell it out.
It’s not possible, for instance, to protect women’s rights to women-only spaces and women’s prizes and women’s awards and protect men’s “rights” to be treated as women in all circumstances without exception. If that’s the contradiction you’re trying to avoid, you have to spell it out so that everyone can point out you can’t do both. You can’t give men everything that belongs to women without violating the rights of women.
Some trans rights activists had argued that her track record suggested a “history of alignment with organisations and narratives that have contributed to the marginalisation of trans people in the UK”.
Who said that bit in the quotation marks? The Telegraph doesn’t say, so I asked Google, which gave me this article. So who said it? If it’s the Telegraph who said it, right here in this article, why is it in quotation marks? Surely it’s a basic duty of journalism to make that kind of thing clear.
Stephenson added that she believes in the importance of protecting the rights of all, including trans people, in the debate around single-sex spaces.
Well if by “including trans people” you mean protecting their non-existent “rights” to demolish women’s rights, then you can’t possibly protect the rights of all. Obliterating the rights of half the population is not the path to that goal.
She said: “I would say, you know, judge me on what I do. I am really keen, I think it’s really important for the chair of the EHRC to uphold the rights of everybody across all protected characteristics.
“I think it’s really important when we’re looking at this issue around single-sex spaces, to make sure that you also protect the rights of trans people. And yes, I will endeavour to do that.”
You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. Swallow the bitter pill. It is not possible. If you think men who idennify as trans have a right to be in single-sex spaces for women, and you act accordingly, then you will be doing the opposite of protecting the rights of women.
Fucking hell this gets exhausting. Years and years spent telling grown-ass adults they can’t square the circle, and nobody budges. “And yes, I will endeavour to square the circle forever and ever and ever.”
The Government has said it will not be rushed in publishing an updated code of practice which will be used by businesses and other organisations to inform their provision of single and separate-sex services such as toilets and changing rooms.
No doubt because the Government knows you can’t square the circle and doesn’t want to be yelled at. We’re stuck at the red light forever.
Spelling out what is meant by “rights” is necessary, but for the wishy-washy who don’t want to be ostracized it’s an incompatible task with their popularity.
Everyone should have their right to their safey without compromise, of course, but if we mean that some people’s rights need to be compromised in order to provide that guarantee then we do have a problem. Until we can get through the heads of the gender identitarians that sex is the determinant of male or female, the “rights” will never be spelled out.
It occurred to me that trans-identifying women are in more danger in a men’s locker or restroom than trans-identifying men are. The issue is not identity, the issue is sex.
To the best of my awareness, Stephenson does not believe that any men should have access to women’s single-sex spaces. I don’t know a lot about her, but I am aware that she has been extensively criticized by TRAs for her ties to and seeming involvement in the gender-critical movement. This helps to explain why she would provide such comments, which I do not think are uncompatible with gender-critical views.
I also recall that Jane Clare Jones was very favorable to her appointment. It’s not clear, but it seems she personally knows Stephenson and deems her to agree with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Equality act.
But, as Stephenson says, let’s wait and see what she does.
Well no, because in the meantime clarity of language is still crucial. It’s not clear what she means by “uphold the rights of everybody across all protected characteristics” and it does matter. Trans dogma is bolstered by this endless vague chatter about the rights of everybody, when some purported rights are in fact destructive of women’s basic rights.
Yes, I can see that Stephenson’s unwillingness to clearly state her position might be concerning in itself.
“The rights of trans people” with respect to “single-sex spaces” include the right of trans-identified women to access women’s single-sex spaces, and the right of trans-identified men to access men’s single-sex spaces. The waffling term “trans people” allows everyone to interpret Stephenson’s statement as supporting their own particular viewpoint.
If “trans people” means, just as it says, transgender people in general, then Stephenson must be contemplating the two different sexes of trans people: ie., those trans people who are of the male sex, and those who are of the female sex. Transgender people who are actually female are obviously included in the set of people entitled to use women’s single-sex facilities.
However, if Stephenson is using the term “trans people” as an equivocation for “trans women” (ie., men), then Stephenson’s statement is far more concerning. Saying “trans people” when the speaker means only “trans women” (men), is a common obfuscation. It betrays that the real purpose of the transgender agenda is to destroy women’s rights. Transgenderism is a men’s rights movement. The men are the only “trans people” who count. Any women who also happen to be transgender are beneath consideration. Their existence doesn’t even enter into the equation. Women don’t matter, same as ever.
I don’t trust Stephenson’s statement. I think she intends to favor the “rights” of “trans women” (aka, men), to the detriment of and at the expense of women, while ignoring “trans men” altogether, and acting as if they are not “trans people.”
I think the original justification for letting men who were transgender use the women’s bathrooms was that they would be in danger if they did continue to use the men’s bathrooms. They had to be let into the women’s bathrooms for their own safety. I think there is some evidence to show that men who are insufficiently macho do get attacked by other men. Nerds and geeks know this. Men who are small and slight know this. Gay men know this, sometimes at the cost of their lives. The arrogance of transgenderism is the men’s making it women’s problem to solve for them.
Male on male violence is a problem. But it is a problem for the men among themselves. It’s not women’s problem. Fearful men are not entitled to solve their problems with other men on the backs of women, who have nothing to do with the situation.
They sucked me in at first, with their “be kind” campaign, particularly aimed at schoolkids. The ads encouraged girls to escort their “trans girl” classmates to the girls’ bathroom, so the poor defenseless “trans girl” wouldn’t be confronted, or refused entry, or attacked by the girls, who presumably would object to a boy in the girls’ bathroom.
That’s the insidiousness of it. It’s why so many trans-identified men use cutesy girly anime avatars, to project their supposed vulnerability and helplessness: they try to appeal to and align themselves with the demographic that is the easiest to exploit. Girls are socialized to be helpful, to practice suppression and self-denial of their own needs and wants. Even young girls have been steeped in the patriarchical tea their whole lives, so of course they want to be brave and helpful and protective. There was at one time a campaign to wear a safety pin on your clothes, to indicate to a vulnerable person, such as a Muslim woman traveling alone on a bus, or a transgender person, that you were a safe person to approach for protection. You would be someone the Muslim woman could sit next to on the bus, to be her friend for that ride, to protect her from anti-Muslim attacks. You could be someone a trans girl or trans woman could approach, to ask for an escort to the women’s bathroom.
It took me some time to realize the mistake, when it comes to trans-identified males. The campaign should have focused on having the boys escort their “trans girl” classmate to the boys’ bathroom, so he could be safe in the bathroom where he actually belonged. If the activists really cared about civil rights and equal treatment, and about reducing male pattern violence in society, they would have recognized their opportunity to break down the rigidities of gender norms, and to free people from the requirements of strict conformity. The men could learn from each other that there is more than one way for boys/men to live in this world, and that not everyone has to be John Wayne tough. Some boys are athletes. Some boys are not. Some boys are geeks and nerds. Some boys are gay. Some boys are transgender, or at least some prefer more feminine styles or modes of presentation. It was a teaching moment that was missed the first time around.
I think the teaching moment may have come around again. Organized transgenderism has by now amassed a great army of allies — mostly men, it seems — who will show up at the drop of a hat to disrupt, drown out, and try to sabotage or shut down any and every meeting of women to discuss women’s rights. They are organized, they are vocal, and they are readily mobilized to respond at any time or place desired. There’s your protective escort teams. There are the men who could be deployed to protect trans girls or trans women who now find themselves legally obligated to use the single-sex bathrooms, locker rooms, etc., set aside for males. Trans girls and trans women need have no fear about using the bathroom allotted for their sex. They’ve got a trained army of protectors. At this juncture, with the new clarification of sex in the equal rights act, and with the infrastructure of protection in place, men who are transgender can now safely use the facilities set aside for their sex. The foundational “justification” for allowing these men into women’s single-sex spaces disappears.
@6 I love this idea of the ‘allies’ taking it upon themselves to protect vulnerable men in men’s bathrooms.
The idea that these particular men are in danger of physical harm from other men in men’s bathrooms may have some initial plausibility, I guess, if we’re taking about random public bathrooms in anonymous places…but I had to wonder when these men claimed to feel in danger in bathrooms at their workplaces (staff bathrooms and changing rooms in hospitals where they were doctors, for example). Are we honestly meant to believe that their male colleagues, who they work with, apparently without incident, outside these bathrooms and changing rooms, were going to lose control and attack them in the bathrooms? If there was any truth in that these colleagues would at minimum be heading for disciplinary action and most likely be sacked.
They’d rather use women as living shields.
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