The GRA needs to be repealed, not reformed. Sex is immutable and you can't 'trans' from one to the other. No one should have a piece of paper telling them they're now of the opposite sex. It's a fantasy.
I appreciate the sentiment, but if we repealed the GRA we would inevitably be taken back to Strasbourg for breaching Article 8 rights, and required to introduce something just like the GRA. The alternative would be major: withdrawing from the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Great contribution from Neale Hanvey- telling it straight what's happening and who is behind it. Our LGB young people need protecting now as much as they ever did.
Hanvey spoke well. There were other good speeches from Joanna Cherry, Jackie Doyle-Price and Angela Richardson. The majority of speeches took a different line so the five MPs mentioned in the piece do deserve praise for speaking out. Cates was interrupted eight times; it was rather confrontational.
Being ignorant can sometimes be a defence, but when politicians such as Mhairi Black and Cashman trot out the same, old, tired disproven tropes and utter nonsense, you have to wonder whether they are cut out for the job.
As far as I know he was SNP and defected to Alba. Unfortunately he will probably lose his seat at the next election as he only has a tiny majority and because he's in a party that wouldn't have a seat at all had he not defected.
He’s very popular locally in a strong ‘yes’ (for Scottish independence) area. Locals are pissed off with the SNP for more reasons than GRA- mainly the party’s lukewarm efforts towards Scottish independence. Fingers crossed he gets in again as he’s a really good MP.
I am glad to see that Sex Matters have come up with a proposal for replacing the Gender Recognition Act. It doesn't involve pretending men are women or vice versa.
Thank you, Debbie. Maybe, just maybe, the tide will start to turn and you and yours will have your peace and quiet to just get on with your lives restored. I know my friends Ada and Ray are looking to a future where they and their lives are no linger under the microscope to satisfy the nosiness of trans activists who do not really care about trans people, only about making a name for themselves.
Does anyone know what’s happening to the confusing guidance Stonewall keeps referring to when they try and back up their position? Sex Matters posted that the government seem to leaning on EHRC not to update it.
The most excellent Debbie Hayton has written a very good article in The Times today about transwomen in sport. As usual with articles about this topic, the comments section has been turned off, thereby censoring everything before it has even been expressed. When comments are allowed they are overwhelmingly GC. So I would like to comment here to thank her once again for her common sense, compassion and courage in expressing her views publicly.
'Temporar mutantur' said Debbie Hayton recently about a similar issue. It is a wise person who is able to change their mind. I cannot look inside DH's head to verify that wisdom is really present, but I know that it's a brave person who is able to admit that they were mistaken. On the quality of the writing and its arguments, DH writes a great piece here on Glinner and in today's Times.
They are not, for example, narcissists like Joseph Grace Lavery. I don't know exactly what GL is. Transwoman, he aint. Pervy creep, grifter and self-publicist, yes. So why can't someone like Debbie Hayton be an ally?
I suppose I'm not fine about that at all. But I read an article recently by Debbie Hayton, can't remember now how recent it was, in which he said he did repudiate his earlier actions to campaign for any right to be able to use women's toilets etc. That it was wrong and a mistake. I appreciate that. Maybe he should say it more loudly that he made a mistake? But where? Maybe the media generally should more widely pick up on that repudiation? But how likely is that? I will re read what you wrote throughout this thread. It's fierce and honest and I recognise and appreciate that. Thank you.
I believe I can answer this. Debbie has asked many times to be allowed to change the guidance but keeps being told that the union has no appetite for it. Debbie can’t afford to alienate the union because they are the ones standing up to trans rights activists on his behalf. Again I’d like to thank Debbie for contributing a great piece.
It's seems every time this is asked of him, you jump in to answer. Surely he has a big enough platform (an article in both the Times and Spectator, as well as here in the past few days) to lead the charge himself? I've never see him publicly disown these policies, in fact he frequently ignores direct questions relating to it.
Maybe Graham could get questions answered directly with Debbie H on The Mess? I’d hate to see a pile on here because credit where credits due - this piece is great reporting!
I wish men would realise they can insist as much as they like, but it's women, not men, who decide whether men are "allies" to women. Only members of the group you are seeking to ally with can decide that. There are too many instances of men saying the right-sounding things (the verbal equivalent of sticking a white ribbon badge on) but when it comes to the choice between their male mates and the women who question them, immediately turn on the women who ask questions about the bona fides of these men and try to discredit them because what they're saying is uncomfortable.
I get this entirely. I hate that women have to put up with expectations from men all, or nearly all the time. People can’t change sex and DH is controversial. I’m guessing DH has changed sides? I personally don’t blame him for that. I’d never heard of AGP until Arty started mentioning it on Mess. I was gob smacked. Also gob smacked to watch some YouTube channels where AGPs said they didn’t know they had it. Another thing for women to put up. I have been really fed up that the main press won’t report it but prattle on about pronouns - it is so dishonest. Our MPs have been appalling too - I’m disgusted with them.
I’d say the TRAs have lost or are losing their position fast.
We are talking about it here - I’d say that is good.
I just think future focusing and perhaps some mediation will help that, otherwise we’ll stay in this mess. Not making light of women’s suffering quite the opposite. Always in the side of women xxx
I am not sure I understand. What is stopping him from saying, publicly, that this guidance was wrong, it is not fit for purpose and should be withdrawn? It seems to me that, having drafted the guidance in the first place and been a beneficiary of it, he has a fair bit of influence in the union. He's also male, which helps. I'd really like to see Debbie speak for himself on this issue and address ForWomen's question as to how he's advocated to change the guidance and the precise details of the response he has received. If the union is standing up to TRAs on his behalf, it seems that they are well aware of his publicly expressed views, may well listen to him and not be alienated. But all we have at the moment is hearsay. Can you understand why women might be at the least sceptical or seek more evidence on this?
Unions, like all other organisations, generally have no appetite to change unless they are pressured to do so or are shown the need for it. Debbie Hayton is in a unique position to do so. It would be a powerful way to show his allyship if he would.
I don't think Debbie is able to comment on his union but I do know the advice is gone from the website. How does Debbie deserve this kind of attack when he does everything in his power to explain that gender identity ideology is an attack on women's rights? "In my view he is seeking to pursue his own mens rights agenda through exploitation of a movement which is critical to preserving even basic civil and human rights for women and girls." What is this based on???
This is incredibly sad when asking questions is viewed as 'attack'.
I know what attack is and ForWomen has been treading a line very carefully and with much nuance for many months. I am disturbed that this is happening here again.
The problem with things 'disappearing' is manifold. Debbie appears like a very nice and reasonable person, but it is instruments like that guidance, that they wrote that has created an inflated 'evidence' base. Apologising and removing that guidance did not retrospectively remove the damage it has done and I don't believe we can force people to forgive the actions of others like is being demanded here. I would like to read that guidance to try to understand the thinking and the ideology behind it and now I can't as it never existed? But it did.
Debbie Hayton is and has been a powerful voice in this and only seems recently to be realising how instrumental their voice was in the erosion of women's and girls' rights and in particular in education. That ideological steamroller is still going in schools and Universities.
In fact, that does happen (I follow a number of anti-racist Black and First Nations activists who get pushback for saying that this or that self-identified "white ally" is a hindrance rather than a help and speaking over people who actually experience the oppression they're fighting against).
Generally, I've noticed an alarming trend in GC spaces (among some people, usually men) to shit on anything that "woke" people advocate for. Censorious "woke" fauxgressives aren't allies either, but that doesn't mean that the causes they say they support - anti-racism, body positivity, First Nations recognition and treaties etc - are wrong. For example, I do not believe that "trans children" exist as a concept (they are gender dysphoric children) but I sure as hell oppose any attempt, as the Australian Government tried recently, to permit religious schools to expel them because "religious freedom". Further picking on gender-confused children because of homophobic religious extremism, many of whom are struggling with their sexuality and going through puberty, and may even have been abused, is not going to combat gender ideology or help these kids manage their dysphoria.
Perhaps you misunderstood my point. I am referring to the men who have entered this movement to push their own ideological and are not progressive allies, yet are promoted as such (a certain anti-woke MRA YouTuber comes to mind). But okay.
Also I literally said that "dysphoric" children are often abused so we're in heated agreement on that.
Yes I understand that, but I was talking about wholesale concepts being dismissed as crap simply because some beardy wokebro pays lip service to them. I am deeply suspicious of career anti-wokists who enter into the GC debate while dismissing racism (which affects many women around the world) and manifestations of misogyny as systemic problems. MRAs like Boyce or James Lindsay are not our friends even though they might say the right thing on this one issue. Religious extremists who want to be able to kick out gender non-conforming or confused kids from schools (thereby driving them further into the delusion of gender ideology) might agree with us on single-sex sports, but they're not doing it because they're friends to women and girls. Just as Beardy McWokeBro claiming to support women refugees or condemning racist harassment of Black women might be correct on these issues, but if he says it while still bellowing about "TERFs" being like Nazis, he is not an ally. I have seen some GC men parrot the views of anti-woke pundits or, for example, sneer at the complaints of sexual harassment by a non-binary-identifying woman ("silly genderspecial overreacting to the nice menz! Look at these woke snowflakes" without even considering that her desire to identify out of femaleness might be something to do with the trauma of sexual harassment) and yet some women who claim to be GC still consider them our allies. They are not.
The GRA needs to be repealed, not reformed. Sex is immutable and you can't 'trans' from one to the other. No one should have a piece of paper telling them they're now of the opposite sex. It's a fantasy.
I appreciate the sentiment, but if we repealed the GRA we would inevitably be taken back to Strasbourg for breaching Article 8 rights, and required to introduce something just like the GRA. The alternative would be major: withdrawing from the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Debbie Hayton is always great to read.
Interesting, isn't it? Miriam Cates, who studied genetics at University was challenged by Mhairi Black, an economics student, on a biological matter.
Thank you.
Great contribution from Neale Hanvey- telling it straight what's happening and who is behind it. Our LGB young people need protecting now as much as they ever did.
Hanvey spoke well. There were other good speeches from Joanna Cherry, Jackie Doyle-Price and Angela Richardson. The majority of speeches took a different line so the five MPs mentioned in the piece do deserve praise for speaking out. Cates was interrupted eight times; it was rather confrontational.
I hadn't heard about Neale Hanvey before. He sounds like a good 'un to have onside. Do any of the opposing team have any arguments whatsoever?
Neale spoke at the LGB Alliance conference last year (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl1Frd_QGtc) and no, the opposing team never have any good arguments...
Being ignorant can sometimes be a defence, but when politicians such as Mhairi Black and Cashman trot out the same, old, tired disproven tropes and utter nonsense, you have to wonder whether they are cut out for the job.
As far as I know he was SNP and defected to Alba. Unfortunately he will probably lose his seat at the next election as he only has a tiny majority and because he's in a party that wouldn't have a seat at all had he not defected.
He’s very popular locally in a strong ‘yes’ (for Scottish independence) area. Locals are pissed off with the SNP for more reasons than GRA- mainly the party’s lukewarm efforts towards Scottish independence. Fingers crossed he gets in again as he’s a really good MP.
That's good. I hope he wins then.
At last the adults are back..the mantra of the cultists just sounds bizarre and tantrummy.
I am glad to see that Sex Matters have come up with a proposal for replacing the Gender Recognition Act. It doesn't involve pretending men are women or vice versa.
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/digital-identity/
Thank you, Debbie. Maybe, just maybe, the tide will start to turn and you and yours will have your peace and quiet to just get on with your lives restored. I know my friends Ada and Ray are looking to a future where they and their lives are no linger under the microscope to satisfy the nosiness of trans activists who do not really care about trans people, only about making a name for themselves.
Does anyone know what’s happening to the confusing guidance Stonewall keeps referring to when they try and back up their position? Sex Matters posted that the government seem to leaning on EHRC not to update it.
Like one step forward, one step back.
This is a good post though thank you
Another bit of hope.
The most excellent Debbie Hayton has written a very good article in The Times today about transwomen in sport. As usual with articles about this topic, the comments section has been turned off, thereby censoring everything before it has even been expressed. When comments are allowed they are overwhelmingly GC. So I would like to comment here to thank her once again for her common sense, compassion and courage in expressing her views publicly.
This is the link: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-athletes-have-no-place-in-womens-sport-cwwbkm8m7 To be fair to The Times, there are other columns on the topic where you may comment. Certainly, Janice Turner's pieces often get commented upon.
You are right that comments are allowed at times. Janice Turner writes well on this topic.
'Temporar mutantur' said Debbie Hayton recently about a similar issue. It is a wise person who is able to change their mind. I cannot look inside DH's head to verify that wisdom is really present, but I know that it's a brave person who is able to admit that they were mistaken. On the quality of the writing and its arguments, DH writes a great piece here on Glinner and in today's Times.
Thank you. I've change my mind on many things.
Serious and honest question: Why are they not allies to women?
They are not, for example, narcissists like Joseph Grace Lavery. I don't know exactly what GL is. Transwoman, he aint. Pervy creep, grifter and self-publicist, yes. So why can't someone like Debbie Hayton be an ally?
To be clear, by GL, I mean Joseph Grace Lavery.
I suppose I'm not fine about that at all. But I read an article recently by Debbie Hayton, can't remember now how recent it was, in which he said he did repudiate his earlier actions to campaign for any right to be able to use women's toilets etc. That it was wrong and a mistake. I appreciate that. Maybe he should say it more loudly that he made a mistake? But where? Maybe the media generally should more widely pick up on that repudiation? But how likely is that? I will re read what you wrote throughout this thread. It's fierce and honest and I recognise and appreciate that. Thank you.
Understand x
I must write to Miriam Cates and thank her for all she's doing.
I believe I can answer this. Debbie has asked many times to be allowed to change the guidance but keeps being told that the union has no appetite for it. Debbie can’t afford to alienate the union because they are the ones standing up to trans rights activists on his behalf. Again I’d like to thank Debbie for contributing a great piece.
It's seems every time this is asked of him, you jump in to answer. Surely he has a big enough platform (an article in both the Times and Spectator, as well as here in the past few days) to lead the charge himself? I've never see him publicly disown these policies, in fact he frequently ignores direct questions relating to it.
Maybe Graham could get questions answered directly with Debbie H on The Mess? I’d hate to see a pile on here because credit where credits due - this piece is great reporting!
Understand strong feelings on this x
I wish men would realise they can insist as much as they like, but it's women, not men, who decide whether men are "allies" to women. Only members of the group you are seeking to ally with can decide that. There are too many instances of men saying the right-sounding things (the verbal equivalent of sticking a white ribbon badge on) but when it comes to the choice between their male mates and the women who question them, immediately turn on the women who ask questions about the bona fides of these men and try to discredit them because what they're saying is uncomfortable.
I get this entirely. I hate that women have to put up with expectations from men all, or nearly all the time. People can’t change sex and DH is controversial. I’m guessing DH has changed sides? I personally don’t blame him for that. I’d never heard of AGP until Arty started mentioning it on Mess. I was gob smacked. Also gob smacked to watch some YouTube channels where AGPs said they didn’t know they had it. Another thing for women to put up. I have been really fed up that the main press won’t report it but prattle on about pronouns - it is so dishonest. Our MPs have been appalling too - I’m disgusted with them.
I’d say the TRAs have lost or are losing their position fast.
We are talking about it here - I’d say that is good.
I just think future focusing and perhaps some mediation will help that, otherwise we’ll stay in this mess. Not making light of women’s suffering quite the opposite. Always in the side of women xxx
I am not sure I understand. What is stopping him from saying, publicly, that this guidance was wrong, it is not fit for purpose and should be withdrawn? It seems to me that, having drafted the guidance in the first place and been a beneficiary of it, he has a fair bit of influence in the union. He's also male, which helps. I'd really like to see Debbie speak for himself on this issue and address ForWomen's question as to how he's advocated to change the guidance and the precise details of the response he has received. If the union is standing up to TRAs on his behalf, it seems that they are well aware of his publicly expressed views, may well listen to him and not be alienated. But all we have at the moment is hearsay. Can you understand why women might be at the least sceptical or seek more evidence on this?
Unions, like all other organisations, generally have no appetite to change unless they are pressured to do so or are shown the need for it. Debbie Hayton is in a unique position to do so. It would be a powerful way to show his allyship if he would.
Don’t leave your voice is powerful and useful in this
Have worked with women survivors, they can be powerful and some will be unafraid to question David
Women in here stop being silent! ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you - I agree 100%.
I don't think Debbie is able to comment on his union but I do know the advice is gone from the website. How does Debbie deserve this kind of attack when he does everything in his power to explain that gender identity ideology is an attack on women's rights? "In my view he is seeking to pursue his own mens rights agenda through exploitation of a movement which is critical to preserving even basic civil and human rights for women and girls." What is this based on???
This is incredibly sad when asking questions is viewed as 'attack'.
I know what attack is and ForWomen has been treading a line very carefully and with much nuance for many months. I am disturbed that this is happening here again.
The problem with things 'disappearing' is manifold. Debbie appears like a very nice and reasonable person, but it is instruments like that guidance, that they wrote that has created an inflated 'evidence' base. Apologising and removing that guidance did not retrospectively remove the damage it has done and I don't believe we can force people to forgive the actions of others like is being demanded here. I would like to read that guidance to try to understand the thinking and the ideology behind it and now I can't as it never existed? But it did.
Debbie Hayton is and has been a powerful voice in this and only seems recently to be realising how instrumental their voice was in the erosion of women's and girls' rights and in particular in education. That ideological steamroller is still going in schools and Universities.
I didn't know that, I'd like to read about his story too
I think that would be good as well.
In fact, that does happen (I follow a number of anti-racist Black and First Nations activists who get pushback for saying that this or that self-identified "white ally" is a hindrance rather than a help and speaking over people who actually experience the oppression they're fighting against).
Generally, I've noticed an alarming trend in GC spaces (among some people, usually men) to shit on anything that "woke" people advocate for. Censorious "woke" fauxgressives aren't allies either, but that doesn't mean that the causes they say they support - anti-racism, body positivity, First Nations recognition and treaties etc - are wrong. For example, I do not believe that "trans children" exist as a concept (they are gender dysphoric children) but I sure as hell oppose any attempt, as the Australian Government tried recently, to permit religious schools to expel them because "religious freedom". Further picking on gender-confused children because of homophobic religious extremism, many of whom are struggling with their sexuality and going through puberty, and may even have been abused, is not going to combat gender ideology or help these kids manage their dysphoria.
Perhaps you misunderstood my point. I am referring to the men who have entered this movement to push their own ideological and are not progressive allies, yet are promoted as such (a certain anti-woke MRA YouTuber comes to mind). But okay.
Also I literally said that "dysphoric" children are often abused so we're in heated agreement on that.
Yes I understand that, but I was talking about wholesale concepts being dismissed as crap simply because some beardy wokebro pays lip service to them. I am deeply suspicious of career anti-wokists who enter into the GC debate while dismissing racism (which affects many women around the world) and manifestations of misogyny as systemic problems. MRAs like Boyce or James Lindsay are not our friends even though they might say the right thing on this one issue. Religious extremists who want to be able to kick out gender non-conforming or confused kids from schools (thereby driving them further into the delusion of gender ideology) might agree with us on single-sex sports, but they're not doing it because they're friends to women and girls. Just as Beardy McWokeBro claiming to support women refugees or condemning racist harassment of Black women might be correct on these issues, but if he says it while still bellowing about "TERFs" being like Nazis, he is not an ally. I have seen some GC men parrot the views of anti-woke pundits or, for example, sneer at the complaints of sexual harassment by a non-binary-identifying woman ("silly genderspecial overreacting to the nice menz! Look at these woke snowflakes" without even considering that her desire to identify out of femaleness might be something to do with the trauma of sexual harassment) and yet some women who claim to be GC still consider them our allies. They are not.