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A thread on how & #39;trans& #39; has been redefined and how that could change who gets to enter girls& #39; changing rooms. Proponents of Gender Recognition Reform in Scotland say it& #39;s just a tiny administrative change. So let& #39;s go on an adventure to discover the truth...with & #39;Stefoknee& #39;
2./ Stefoknee Wolchst hit the headlines in 2015 when the Canadian station Xtra interviewed her discussing how & #39;she& #39; identifies as a 6 year old girl. & #39;She& #39; complains bitterly about having to use men& #39;s bathrooms. You can see more of the interview here :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbiAHnjHlHg&feature=emb_logo">https://www.youtube.com/watch...
3./ Proponents of Reform will tell you the new proposals have NOTHING to do with male-bodied people entering women& #39;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">https://twitter.com/MorganeOg...
4./ And here& #39;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& #39;s almost as if they& #39;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& #39;s single sex spaces so the Scottish govt won& #39;t need to change any rules. But this isn& #39;t true technically nor in practise. If someone like Stefoknee turned up...
6./ .... at a girls& #39; 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& #39;t imagine for a moment that someone who & #39;presents& #39; like Stefoknee has the right to access women& #39;s single sex...
7./ ..spaces. And if the Scottish govt thinks otherwise they& #39;ve never got round to disabusing the public. I wonder why? Point is it& #39;s quite likely the Scottish equivalent of Stefoknee would fail to gain a certificate if she embarked on the present process in Scotland. That& #39;s
8./ ..because the process laid out in that Act was explicitly devised to meet only the needs of transsexuals. You& #39;ll look in vain for the word transgender in Hansard& #39;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">https://api.parliament.uk/historic-...
9./ ..who& #39;ve taken "decisive steps" to live fully in their new gender. Trans activists have redefined & #39;trans& #39; 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& #39;s a woman (self-ID). This isn& #39;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">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/201...
12./ That process (or part of) is defined as changing physiological or other attributes of SEX, not gender expression. I& #39;m not sure that Stefoknee& #39;s string of pearls would count as enough to win her the certificate and that& #39;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 & #39;gender identity& #39;. Whatever that is. Here& #39;s the EHRC& #39;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& #39;re in. So who will the new process not allow to gain...
16./ legal certification as a woman? What about Stefoknee? It& #39;s up to her of course if after a stint in prison & 2 decades as a father (of 7) she believes she& #39;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& #39; changing rooms and who shouldn& #39;t? They& #39;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& #39;s confused is an understatement. When it embarked on this Reform in 2014 it said it wanted to alleviate the burden of painful & #39;gender dysphoria& #39;. 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& #39;s the govt using & #39;dysphoria& #39; to virtue signal. Sad faces all round. https://www.gov.scot/policies/lgbti/understanding-gender-identity-and-reassignment/">https://www.gov.scot/policies/...
20./ But since 2014 many trans activists have begun to argue & #39;dysphoria& #39; is irrelevant. Here& #39;s one claiming "more and more people who identify with the label of transgender have also found they haven& #39;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">https://www.advocate.com/commentar...
21./ ..qualify to gain the legal status of women & thereby full entry to single sex spaces? Here& #39;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& #39;s our elected Scottish govt& #39;s response to this insanity? It can be summed up as a version of Stefonknee& #39;s own when parents expressed concern in Canada.
23./ To stop this bill we& #39;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& #39;s being done..
24./ ..in your name, and a big welcome and thanks to trans people of goodwill. It won& #39;t matter if you& #39;re gay or straight & what party you vote for or don& #39;t. The question is simple: whose interests does this govt serve, the Scottish people or Stefoknee& #39;s.
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