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A thread on how 'trans' has been redefined and how that could change who gets to enter girls' changing rooms. Proponents of Gender Recognition Reform in Scotland say it's just a tiny administrative change. So let's go on an adventure to discover the truth...with 'Stefoknee'
2./ Stefoknee Wolchst hit the headlines in 2015 when the Canadian station Xtra interviewed her discussing how 'she' identifies as a 6 year old girl. 'She' complains bitterly about having to use men's bathrooms. You can see more of the interview here :-
3./ Proponents of Reform will tell you the new proposals have NOTHING to do with male-bodied people entering women's single sex spaces. A prominent Canadian trans activist kindly tweeted me 2 days ago to say exactly that. https://twitter.com/MorganeOgerBC/status/1213735938070761472?s=20
4./ And here's Vic Parsons from our friends at Pink News doing much the same while urging peeps from all over the world to send in their thoughts to our Scottish govt. It's almost as if they're reading from the same prepared script. Either way both are being disingenious.
5./ What Vic and Morgane & their colleagues mean is that they believe transwomen already have a right to enter women's single sex spaces so the Scottish govt won't need to change any rules. But this isn't true technically nor in practise. If someone like Stefoknee turned up...
6./ .... at a girls' changing room in Drumpchapel or Duntocher there would be, shall we say, a ripple of discontent. Truth is that the vast majority of Scots don't imagine for a moment that someone who 'presents' like Stefoknee has the right to access women's single sex...
7./ ..spaces. And if the Scottish govt thinks otherwise they've never got round to disabusing the public. I wonder why? Point is it's quite likely the Scottish equivalent of Stefoknee would fail to gain a certificate if she embarked on the present process in Scotland. That's
8./ ..because the process laid out in that Act was explicitly devised to meet only the needs of transsexuals. You'll look in vain for the word transgender in Hansard's account (attached). The Act is clear that rights are reserved only for those people... https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2004/feb/23/gender-recognition-bill
9./ ..who've taken "decisive steps" to live fully in their new gender. Trans activists have redefined 'trans' many times since but the intent of the original act still provides a benchmark. Now they want the Act to cover any male who says he's a woman (self-ID). This isn't ..
10./..changing the goalposts so much as the sports fields and the competitors too. Another reason proponents are so keen on Reform is that when the Equality Act (2010) made reassignment a protected characteristic it too referred only to....well you guessed it.
11./ Yep transsexuals again. And how did they gain protection? ONLY if they were planning to undergo, were undergoing or had undergone a process, as the Act makes clear here:- http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7/enacted
12./ That process (or part of) is defined as changing physiological or other attributes of SEX, not gender expression. I'm not sure that Stefoknee's string of pearls would count as enough to win her the certificate and that's because at the moment there are gatekeepers.
13./ ...actual doctors & psychiatrists who determine how serious a person is. They often turn people down, the process is far from automatic and it must last a full 2 years. The proposed Reform gets rid of gatekeepers and effectively makes the process automatic. But the shift...
14./ has already started. LGBT groups lobbied the Equality and Human Rights Commission to move away from sex towards 'gender identity'. Whatever that is. Here's the EHRC's Lindsey Reynolds explaining how gender identity is covered now. At 1.54 she struggles to distinguish...
15./ ..between cross-dressers (protected) and cross-dressers at stag parties (not protected). But the Reform will make this distinction null & void. Self-ID means no querying of motives. A solemn vow (so very solemn) and you're in. So who will the new process not allow to gain...
16./ legal certification as a woman? What about Stefoknee? It's up to her of course if after a stint in prison & 2 decades as a father (of 7) she believes she's really a 6 year old girl. But if certificates are to be handed out willy-nilly (so to speak) to folks who (like her)..
17./ ..might not have got one before how are people in Dumbarton or Dumfries to judge who should be in their daughters' changing rooms and who shouldn't? They're not allowed to ask for a gender certificate. That may have made sense when the number of people applying was...
18./ ..tiny. Now the govt says it hopes perhaps thousands of new certificates will be issued. To say it's confused is an understatement. When it embarked on this Reform in 2014 it said it wanted to alleviate the burden of painful 'gender dysphoria'. This condition was used by ...
19./ ..the trans lobby to widen the definition of trans from transsexuals to a much wider group of people who "felt discomfort in their assigned gender". Here's the govt using 'dysphoria' to virtue signal. Sad faces all round. https://www.gov.scot/policies/lgbti/understanding-gender-identity-and-reassignment/
20./ But since 2014 many trans activists have begun to argue 'dysphoria' is irrelevant. Here's one claiming "more and more people who identify with the label of transgender have also found they haven't felt any dysphoria at all". Ok, so who should... https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/1/18/do-you-need-gender-dysphoria-be-trans
21./ ..qualify to gain the legal status of women & thereby full entry to single sex spaces? Here's a screengrab from Transgender Europe celebrating the best practise in Malta & Argentina which "IS OPEN TO ANYONE NOT ONLY TRANS". That my friends is the goal in practise.
22./ Pass this Bill and in time anyone will be able to identify as a woman and the state will back them. What's our elected Scottish govt's response to this insanity? It can be summed up as a version of Stefonknee's own when parents expressed concern in Canada.
23./ To stop this bill we're going to need the widest possible cross-section of Scottish civil society, from concerned parents to radical lesbians, from feminists to Catholic bishops. Yes and atheists and Muslims too. Step forward SNP stalwarts embarrassed by what's being done..
24./ ..in your name, and a big welcome and thanks to trans people of goodwill. It won't matter if you're gay or straight & what party you vote for or don't. The question is simple: whose interests does this govt serve, the Scottish people or Stefoknee's.
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