Read on Twitter
1./ If the UK govt really has rejected Gender Self-ID it will be a historic defeat for the "gender identity" lobby. But how did such a strange idea as Self-ID ever gain so much political traction? It's a bizarre and troubling story. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/changing-gender-to-get-cheaper-but-self-identify-scheme-is-off-0twtdw5fr
2./ It all starts in Edinburgh in 1974 when two guys bring together gay organisations from across Europe to form the International Gay Congress. One of them, Ian Dunn, is an unrepentant paedophile and founder member of PIE. Here's his obituary.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-ian-dunn-1151494.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-ian-dunn-1151494.html
3./ IGC would go on to become ILGA, the pre-eminent international gay rights organisation; despite its status as a UN NGO being interrupted in 1994 when its links to pro-paedophile organisations were revealed. Here's ILGA's own take on that debacle. https://ilga.org/ilga-ecosoc-status-controversy
https://ilga.org/ilga-ecosoc-status-controversy
4./ When ILGA finally managed to put that row behind it, in 2006, it returned to its efforts to argue the UN should embrace gay rights properly. It couldn't overcome the opposition of the likes of Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia. So ILGA had a bright idea. Fancy a trip to Indonesia?
5./ In 2007 ILGA invited human rights lawyers on an expen$e$ paid trip to Yogyakarta in Indone$ia where they drew up a charter of human right$ they hoped would become the definitive statement on gay rights. Here'$ a guide to Yogyakarta. Look$ lovely
6. A fateful mistake was made tho. Late in the day trans activists like Stephen Whittle were invited who argued for the inclusion of "gender identity" with equal status as sexual orientation in the new "Yogyakarta Principles". They won. https://yogyakartaprinciples.org/principle-3/
https://yogyakartaprinciples.org/principle-3/
7. At the heart of the YP's gender identity clauses was the concept of Self-ID, taken from the fringes of trans activism, which said anyone should be able to be legally recognised as the sex they identified as, no questions asked. It was soon being promoted by activists worldwide
8./ The first to buy into the YP baloney was breathtakingly corrupt Argentina in 2012. Here's a thread that explores how the appalling Christina Kirchner used Self-ID to tran$wash her image as progre$$ive. Her net worth is an e$timated $115M. #justsaying https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1215336108776706050?s=20
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1215336108776706050?s=20
9./ When deeply corrupt Malta joined the EU its govt was desperate to appear progressive and so passed Self-ID. A critic of this policy, as well as rampant corruption, was Daphne Galizia. Leading members of that same govt are now implicated in her death. https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2020/feb/08/malta-daphne-caruana-galizia-murder-journalist-investigation
https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2020/feb/08/malta-daphne-caruana-galizia-murder-journalist-investigation
10./ Just six months before her murder in a car bomb, Pink News bemoaned the fact Malta had overtaken Scotland's top place in ILGA's ranking on LGBT rights. There was no mention of the fact Malta's weapons grade corruption disqualified it as a model of anything but lawlessness
11./ We're told now that Self-ID is "international best practise". It's not. In Ireland, Denmark and Norway Self-ID was smuggled in during campaigns for marriage equality. This was a deliberate tactic as this extract from legal advice to trans lobby groups acknowledges.
12./ This was part of an extraordinary article by @jameskirkup that exposed the deceptive tactics of a lobby that dared not debate Self-ID because they knew the public would never buy it. They decided to exploit gay rights as a Trojan horse instead. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists
13./ In the UK this tactic was exemplified by @stonewalluk who in 2015 adopted trans rights as a number one priority. This was the recommendation of a Trans Advisory Panel they set up that included everyone's favourite trans activist, the bearded "lesbian", Alex Drummond.
14./ On the same panel was Aimee Challoner, champion of Self-ID who failed to tell the Greens her dad, an important "trans ally" whom she lived with, was up for child rape charges for which he was eventually jailed. She's the one with glasses, standing to the left of @ruth_hunt.
15./ Ruth herself, now a Baroness, as Stonewall CEO embraced the notion of Self-ID around the same time something else spooky happened to her. In her book Queer Prophets she describes how Jesus appeared to her in a nightclub and spoke to her. She wept. Queer right enough.
16./ No one in @ALLIANCELGB has seen Jesus but our founding last year was a minor miracle that nailed the myth that rejection of Self-ID is homophobic. Instead it dissolves protections for gays in the law. It's also misused by homophobic parents. https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1279948306446245888?s=20
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1279948306446245888?s=20
17./ Above all the landscape changed with the defence of @MForstater by @jk_rowling who publicly supported the rights of trans people to live their lives as they wanted. The public were baffled by attacks like this that claimed she was somehow hateful https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/19/21029852/jk-rowling-terf-transphobia-history-timeline
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/19/21029852/jk-rowling-terf-transphobia-history-timeline
18./ I don't know if last week's disgusting hashtag RIP JK was the straw that broke the camel's back but it surely must have crystallised for @trussliz the lack of boundaries and sheer viciousness of the Self-ID lobby that likes to dress itself up in the language of "kindness".
19./ The rejection of G R Reform will now be a political football. Tories will be denounced as reactionary when women and gays (and worried parents of all sorts) are flocking to their defence, often reluctantly, because @trussliz had the courage to do the right thing.
20./ It's worth remembering tho just how close we came to disaster. When in December 2016 the Tories led the first debate on Transgender Equality they competed for brownie points with the other parties. Here's that woke-fest in all its pitiable glory. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2016-12-01c.1692.2
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2016-12-01c.1692.2
21./ Theresa May was PM and had bought into Self-ID. So had all the other parties. Here's the SNP's usually super-smart @joannaccherry selling the nonsense of the YP and boasting of the SNP's adoption of "gender identity". Like Joanna we're thankfully all wiser now.
22./ Or are we? Bad ideas with momentum like Self-ID can take on a life of their own. Here's @JournoStephen dissecting the Lib Dems' interpretation of Self-ID that claims referring to male bodied people (who say they are female) as male is transphobic. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lib-dems-transphobia-meltdown-is-complete
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lib-dems-transphobia-meltdown-is-complete
23./ This despite the fact that Stephen Whittle himself (that author of the YP & leading transman) ridiculed the idea biological sex was the same as 'gender identity'. The Lib Dems can't even make their wokeness coherent. https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1271832129085886465?s=20
https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1271832129085886465?s=20
24./ If we're lucky this week's reversal of the march of Self-ID will be pivotal. Women's right to define themselves will be accorded the importance it deserves. Kids can be protected, gays allowed to defend our rights in law. But the story of Self-ID should be a cautionary tale.
How could an idea so fundamentally irrational and with such dodgy roots in notions inimical to kids have wriggled its way into the minds of so many legislators? Perhaps if we can learn from this farce we can defend ourselves from the next incursion of the delusional.
