Solidarity never
Hostility to women continues to thrive.
Public sector workers and trade unions are widely refusing to accept the Supreme Court’s judgment on what a woman is, a think tank has warned.
A new study by Policy Exchange shows that dozens of organisations across the public, private and charitable sectors have continued to question the legal meaning of “a woman”, despite the ruling.
…
Policy Exchange’s report, the fifth edition of its “Biology Matters Compendium”, compiles examples of organisations refusing to acknowledge the legal force of the court’s judgment.
Kind of like segregationists refusing to acknowledge the legal force of Brown v Board of Education. Well no…not kind of like; exactly like. No we will not respect women’s rights and you can’t make us.
The report notes that at least seven major trade unions have appeared to question the ruling in recent months.
Unison, one of the UK’s largest unions, and the University and Colleges Union, which represents academic and support staff in further and higher education institutions, have warned of the judgment’s “harmful implications”.
The Fire Brigades’ Union has said in response to the ruling that “the law is not always on the right side of history”.
The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (Aslef) released a statement on social media saying that it “recognises the distress and uncertainty that the Supreme Court’s ruling about the definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010 has caused to trans and non-binary communities.”
The union declared: “We have a proud history of championing the rights of our trans and non-binary members and we continue to stand in solidarity with them.”
And as for women, fuck them. We stand in solidarity with men who nullify women’s rights, not with bitchy women who try to hang on to their rights.
A collection of unions, including Unite, the civil service union PCS, the RMT and the BFAWU, a food industry union, have staged marches against the Supreme Court’s decision, with one leading figure declaring that “the trade union movement will protect and stand with trans people, whether the law cares or not.”
Unions proudly declare their hatred of women. Solidarity forever, except solidarity with women.
The British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, branded the Supreme Court’s decision “scientifically illiterate”. Meanwhile, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said it would “not rush” to change rules on strip-searching in order to fall in with the court’s decision.
We can’t just rush into this crazy new thing of admitting women have rights.
Thank you, JKR, for your timely foundation of a fund to help women to sue. Let’s see what losing rather a lot of money does to the attitude of these unions. Perhaps they might be prompted to kick out the narcissistic misogynists currently in charge of policy, instead of being made bankrupt.
@1: Or maybe they’ll just let themselves go bankrupt, which is probably also a good outcome in the long term, although in the short term it will hurt a lot of union members who need the union to fight for them on other fronts. That is, assuming the unions actually are competent on other fronts. Judging from their incompetence on this front, maybe they really aren’t competent on any.
And that “history” is incredibly short. I wonder if at any time they ever came out with a similar statement in support of women? Their struggle has been ongoing for millenia, and the union is coming out in favour of continuing to fight against them. Congratulations.
Protect from what exactly? What actual rights are they losing? Name them. Trick question: there aren’t any. Ultimately you’re protecting the “right” of men to invade women’s spaces. Congratulations.
This is what it would sound like if the Royal Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union declared their support of astrology by branding its critics as “scientifically illiterate.” I’m not even a doctor or a scientist, and I can see this declaration for the Lysenkoism it is. It’s all undone by knowing that humans can’t change sex, and that DSDs do not turn sex into a “spectrum.” This will not age well; it was past its best before date when they plopped it on the shelf.
Indeed. Looking forward to more court cases to “clarify the clarification” via the bank accounts of organizations willfully persecuting women who say “No” to men in their spaces. That this pursuit through the courts is even necessary is now, literally, nothing short of criminal. “Would you like some jail time along with your fines?”
These Bozos are so bloody confident in the (self) righteousness and unquestioned progressiveness of their cause. It’s astounding, really. They are so insulated inside their gender ideological bubble*. They have no idea. The actions of these unions will be held up as examples, alongside the use of fire hoses and police dogs against Black Civil Rights marchers of what being on the wrong side of history looks like.
*Not that I’m any smarter than they are, just as there are lots of people smarter than me who are theists. Being “smart” or “intelligent” or “reasonable” doesn’t have as much to do with taking sides on this issue as many on both sides would expect or prefer. I managed to avoid becoming ensorcelled by the “other side” by the events surrounding Ophelia’s escape/ouster from Freethought Blogs. I think I posted on Pharyngula using the phrase “cisheteronormative” in earnest exactly once. But L’affaire Benson made me stop and say “Hang on a minute.” This was enough to keep me from going any farther down the faux-progressive path of uncritical, reflexive, trans “allyship”. I dodged a bullet, and there was more than a little luck involved. I wasn’t wearing a Kevlar vest (or a helmet), so my presence here amongst the B&W commentariat is, as Steven Jay Gould would have said “a contigent fact of history.” I could have gone otherwise; I’m glad I didn’t.
Certainly there’s tribalism on “both sides”, but I think the genderist side has a monopoly on actual cultishness.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the number of women in the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen is vanishingly small – very few women do these jobs even now. (ChatGPT says 6.5% of their members are women, for what it’s worth – and a nonzero percentage of these are, presumably, the LARPing men ASLEF is so proud to support.)
The BMA has just branded itself medically illiterate. That’s quite a spectacular own goal. Any medical professional who doesn’t know that men are not women should have his/her license revoked.
nB @ 3 – I didn’t know that! It was quite the “Hang on a minute” display, wasn’t it – the way they all lined up to do the formal Denunciation, taking turns so nicely so that EVERYBODY got to denounce without any overlap.
Yes, looking back, I see I was at the edge of the rabbit hole/abyss of thoughtless acceptance, based on received “wisdom”. I’d like to think I’m (more) immune to “following” than I used to be, but I could be wrong. Having the writing of the good people here at B&W to read, and to bounce my own ideas off of helps keep me honest. I’ve been exposed to enough clue-by-fours here to keep me in building materials for years to come. Thank you all!
I mostly ignored trans until that moment. I had some vaguely uneasy feelings, centered around male bodies in women only spaces, but kept them to myself, assuming I was being bigoted. When Ophelia moved back here, I followed, and was able to process my feelings of unease more fully.