Protesters demonstrate outside the Scotish Parliament for reform of the Gender Recognition Act. (Photo by Ken Jack/Getty Images)
Gender recognition is the ultimate political hot potato. Three years after Justine Greening — the then Equalities Minister — announced a public consultation on changes to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, and two years after the public were finally asked for their views, we are still far from resolution. As the months passed, many assumed that the Government had kicked it into the long grass, if not the primeval forest.
The consultation itself came and went a year later in 2018 amid fervent campaigns by transgender activists eager to allow legal gender changes on demand, and women’s groups concerned that their boundaries would be rendered meaningless as a result. If men can identify as women — for whatever reason they might choose — how can they be kept out? It is naïve to rely on the argument that “men wouldn’t do that, would they?” Spaces such as changing rooms are most often cited, but also at risk are prisons, hospital wards, reserved places on committees and boards, scholarships and, indeed, every sex-based protection.
For the past two years, the hot potato never went cold — on the contrary, it ignited a social media inferno. The furore surrounding JK Rowling — condemned as a transphobe for reclaiming the word woman to describe her sex — is remarkable only because she is a public figure.
The plans leaked to The Sunday Times, and splashed across yesterday’s front page, sparked uproar. Many transgender rights campaigners were horrified. These were not the plans they were looking for. Nancy Kelly, CEO of Stonewall UK described them as “another blow to our community during a difficult time”, citing the huge amount of abuse they believe trans people suffer in their daily lives.
As a trans person, I take issue with that statement. I very rarely suffer hostility in the UK — there seems to be no a causal link between gender recognition legislation and social attitudes at large. When I am out and about, people couldn’t appear to care less that I am trans, if they even notice, and few would know anything about the rather obscure law under debate.
The plans were not even unexpected. On 22 April, Liz Truss — the minister for Women and Equalities — set out her priorities for the Government Equalities Office. As she closed her statement, she remarked,
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SubscribeRachel Dolezal. Do any remember her. She was a chapter president of NAACP in Washington State and lecturer in African Studies. In 2015 she became the centre of controversy when it was discovered that she was in fact Caucasian though she self-identified as black. The black community who she worked with rejected this identification and she lost certain positions as a result.
My problem with self identification is that it attempts to rewrite what actually exists be it sex or be it race. There is a great danger that Humpty Dumpty will become our master and any who rebel against him will be the ‘fall guys’ .
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean”neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master”that’s all.”
He should have had some Mushroom soup.
Very well stated. I was particularly disappointed thet the Olympics were postponed this year, because it was going to force the issue of self-identification onto the stage of international competition. There is not a doubt in my mind that the US olympic selection committees would submit at least a couple of biological men into the women’s’ competition on the US Olympic team. Now we have to wait a year until the unicorn invasion is over.
Excellent article. Sanity is so refreshing.
I’d like to say something profound on this subject, but have decided that Hans Rosling beat me to it some time ago:
“Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.”
And
“There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”
Ha ha. I’d say it’s more like ‘forming your view about me by looking at only a picture of my dog!’
Completely agree and it’s so refreshing to hear some common sense instead of the usual hysteria (pardon the pun).
I actually do not understand why it is called transphobia as I nether have a fear of or aversiuon too ytans people. It is their life to do with what they feel like. The fact that I consoder a man who has had a sex change to still be a man in essense does not mean I have a phobia towards them. Trans people forever go on about having the right to call themselves the sex that they have changed too, so does that mean I do not have the right to consoder them still the sex they were born as????? If you paint an apple Orange, it is still an apple on the inside.
Line 1 of article: George Floyd’s appalling murder….
Oh I must have missed that trial. It may well be murder, but it looked as likely to me to be just criminally negligent of the officer to allow him to die – are you so sure he intended to kill (which is needed to be murder, surely?). It is also possible the officer was simply badly trained in restraint, or he may have been taught to do that, in which case he may not be culpable at all (the police dept would be responsible).
Sorry, though I might be a simpleton. I prefer a trial before declaring someone a murderer.
You beat me to it and you are right. The fact that Mr Floyd died whilst in the custody of police is not in dispute. Culpability – and for what offence – has yet to be determined. That won’t, of course, stop the ‘woke’ from twisting what little we know as fact (currently) to suit their naive and unhelpful take on the world.
The Minneapolis Police Department train their officers to use the knee on neck restraint and describe it in their operating manual as a ‘non lethal force option’. The civil lawsuit against them is going to be huge.
“people couldn’t appear to care less that I am trans, if they even notice”
Some of these blokes, though, are rubbish at being women so it’s hardly surprising they get laughed at. Perhaps they should look at taking up some other hobby.
As Barack Obama put it: “Most working-class and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.” Mr Obama is certainly far more privileged than most.
To my simple mind it doesn’t seem to much of a jump from white privilege to white supremacy. The ideologies sit neatly together, just viewed from different perspectives.
I see people of all colours achieving great things I find it absurd and divisive to group people by skin colour. What does Obama have in common with a poor, fatherless kid caught up in drugs and gang violence?
He didn’t seem to say he was speaking about himself, he mentioned “working class” and I doubt if he included himself in middle class as he was the president.
What Obama, and others of good faith who use the term white privilege are talking about is the uncontested fact that being white in America is easier than being black is. If you’re white and have a crap life, what does it cost you to admit that a black person in your exact circumstances has it worse — e.g., being followed in stores and treated with suspicion, being targeted by cops, having a harder time obtaining a loan at the going rate, etc. — than you do?
Obama wasn’t talking about himself; he obviously obtained great stature in America by virtue of being elected twice. You’re correct that white privilege and white supremacy are the same. How many white bankers, executives, accomplished athletes do you see being pulled over and humiliated by cops who think a black person would only be driving such a nice car if he or she stole it?
If you don’t see inequality in how white and black people are treated in America, it’s not because it’s not happening every single day. It’s because your mind is closed, and you comfort yourself by believing blacks have all the rights and privileges as the rest of the population, and you just love saying, “I don’t see color.” That’s because you have a certain kind of blindness, the kind that protects you from really grasping how much harder and less safe is for people of color.
We instantly recognised ourselves as Tory Anarchists. Now what can we do about it?
I cannot for the life in me understand why any trans person would want to use either the gents or the women’s loos, surely there should be loos that are for any sex or sexual orientation, there are women’s, men’s disabled, why not just loo
Poor article.
“a form of cultural dissident, out of step with and in opposition to many features of the modern world” displaying “respect for privacy and the liberty of individuals, a fear of the state and its expanding power over social life; a nostalgic and melancholy temper that laments the passing of an ‘Old England’; criticism of social conformism; and a pervasive sense of pessimism about the fate of the modern world.” describes me to a tee.
I recently moved to Australia, a far more conservative country, at least outside of the big cities, and have been struck by the sense of community and pride in their towns. The type of radical localism you describe would be a good fit here. I’m not sure there is a strong enough sense of community in England. People are far more transient and it’s hard to distinguish the characteristics of one town to the next. Having said that maybe keeping power closer to home could be a trigger to creating such communities. The other problem is when one area fares better than another there will be the indignant screams of “postcode lottery!”
Sorry, the analogies between Trump and Don Giovanni are desperate and forced. Trump hasn’t been a Lothario who collects lovers; I think Pomerantsev is confusing him with Slick Willy Clinton.
Since Pomerantsev takes such an interest in Trump’s personal life, surely the thing that stands out from him as compared to most presidents is that he has had the most wives of any president: three. Two of his three wives were Eastern European, including his First Lady, were Eastern European, so he is hardly a nativist. Not since Jacqueline Kennedy has there been a First Lady in the White House who speaks French. Besides English, Melania Trump also speaks German, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and her mother tongue Slovenian. No other First Lady, to the best of my knowledge, has been fluent in any Slavic language, and Trump’s popularity among Slovenians and Serbs has something to do with her. But Pomerantsev, of Slavic background himself, doesn’t want to go there. Instead, he contrasts how Trump embraces Jared Kushner, “a Jewish Modern Orthodox son-in-law while peddling anti-Semitic tropes about George Soros.” Surely, his relationship with Kushner is sufficient proof that accusations of Anti-Semitism against Trump are rubbish. A lot of people doubted the wisdom of letting a person with no diplomatic experience dabble in international affairs as Trump has allowed his Jewish son-in-law to do. However, the results so far have generally been positive. Kushner is given credit for keeping talks with Canada going during the negotiations on renegotiating NAFTA, keeping it from ending up a USMA instead of a USMCA. He also helped influence Trump’s decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a major step forward in Middle East diplomacy. Pomerantsev doesn’t deign to say what were the alleged anti-Semitic tropes Trump used against international busybody George Soros, but there is no reason he should speak kindly of someone who denounces him as a con man and a narcissist. Soros has crossed too many red lines for anyone to trust him. What to think of a financier who once paid the salaries of the whole cabinet of Georgia?
I like to keep up on modern Russia and had thought to read Pomerantsev’s book “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible”. Now that I know how Pomerantsev’s mind works, I will give it a pass. Thank you, UnHerd!
Perhaps an apt way of reframing the ambiguity of an exclusive populism (whether left or right) that pits an exclusive section of society (Commandatore whether left or right) against an exclusive section of the State (Don whether left or right) is Inclusive Populism.
I say this because the very basis of an exclusive populism is the contested field of projections between the Liberal Left and the Conservative Right whereby exclusivity is pitted against exclusivity with both the Left Liberal Establishment and the Right Conservative Establishment redefining the Wholeness of Society as a dichotomy between the people and the state much like two halves of a circle.
In this respect, exclusive populism is predicated on the mental construction of a bipolar view of Society which essentially deconstructs Society into a ying yang with the demagogue/hero and elite/hero roles being the eyes in each half.
Inclusive Populism on the other hand (in my opinion) is mentally constructed as The Whole Society i. E society should be conceived as the full circle with state functions being a functioning body of elected and appointed members of Society forming a governing body that is located within the larger body of what is Our Society.
On this basis we should be talking /protesting /rebelling /raving about how we manage Our Society rather than talking about the people and the state.
I could be conceived with the underlying values of
Equalised (intrinsic) Value
Equalised (intrinsic) Worth
Equalised (intrinsic) Dignity
Equalised (intrinsic) Respect
with the state positioned either in the centre or not depending on the (democratic) wishes of Society.
Current both the Liberal Establishment and the Conservative Establishment define Society as The People and The State with both trying to co-opt The People as the means to control The State.
This dichotomy serves the exclusive interests of the middle class (managerial/technical class) or the upper class (capital owning class) whilst denying the working class (construction/producer class) a distinct political identity except through the co-opted and self-serving functions of the trade unions.
Thus exclusive populism is a meta rhetorical construct which is actively deployed by the middle or upper classes to suffocate the wisdom of the working class which inevitably leads to the equalisation of value, worth, dignity and respect between the diverse ecological inhabitants of any defined piece of Land.
Our lived experience I think is based on Ecological
Functionalism and I think the lived experience of the producer class and the ethics of the producer class that comes from that lived experience of day to day survival is also based on ecological functionalism.
At the end of the day, supporters of inclusive populism where we see each other as a whole society rather than a bipolar world between the people and the state probably don’t include Donald but then neither does Biden. So the Society of America is currently telling us that there needs to be a third political party that represents Inclusive Populism.
I think Trump needed to question the statistics behind the BLM message. There is enough doubt and uncertainty to diffuse the argument. Perhaps he doesn’t have very good advice?
As a conservative I believe we should look for a bonfire of the quangos, ngo’s and civil service. These groups are self serving and only interested in perpetuating their own existence. Conservatism should be about small government, strong but less law, low tax and democracy not overbearing bureaucracy.
I think I’m moving to NE Syria, or possibly Switzerland
The police we need to abolish in UK are the self appointed woke thought police who conduct vigilante patrols of social media,
If the Donald can print enough green backs and get them into the hands of enough ordinary people of all ethnic backgrounds though job creation and stimulus packages, he will still beat the lack lustre Biden come November.
It amazes me that a country of 330m people cannot find just 2 who are honest and competent enough to hold the most powerful office in the world, so the American people can choose who they think is best rather than least worse.
That all sounds far too sensible for it to actually happen. Successive governments have implemented policies which would always have the side effect, if not direct effect, of pushing up prices, including the way QE was done encouraging easy money for the rich to be put in to top end housing as investments then seeing the Chelsea ripple move out across the country.
I see a house price crash as inevitable (I thought that before Covid, but even more so now). However I fear the government will seek to prop up prices with more bad policies using taxpayers’ money.
As a country we seem to be far more attached to the idea that we need to own our own home than many other European countries. The problem of sky high rents is linked to the need to get a yield on the investment and if house prices are high then rents will be high. There will be pain for some when the house price bubble bursts as negative equity rears its ugly head (showing my age that I know what that means having bought my first house in the early 90s). But house prices were so far out of balance with income before Covid and will be even more so now, allowing the bubble to burst is the only way.
Housing in the UK is a mess, overpriced and poor quality but in truth it is not the only country with this problem. The causes are many and mainly due to many years of very poor policy. The solution you propose does potentially offer some relief and certainly better than help to buy but while we encourage housing to be used as an investment or a business then we are likely to fail. Maybe we should eliminate 2nd homes, ownership by foreign companies and individuals not UK resident, overall remove all subsidies and tax breaks, increase tax on unoccupied property significantly especially for foreign ownership and stop land hoarding as you describe. Tax buy to let and holiday let’s out of existence.
I’d say Britain is a hugely racist place: its institutions regularly discriminate against its native population denying them jobs, freedom of speech and relentlessly demonising their history.
The media in particular present racial hatred as something the natives only ever do all the while refusing to report on the thousands of racist attacks on white men that have happened in places like Oldham, Bradford etc (including at least five racist murders). The racial contempt for young white females which is at the heart of the still almost entirely covered up ‘grooming gang’ scandal (pretty much every town and city in the country is a ‘Rotherham’) being almost completely verboten.
There will be many native British victims of racism watching this hysteria with utter dismay.
There is a sensible article. But most of this I already know having lived through all mad Housing Ups and down. My house cost £14999. Today at least £250k. These days Conservatory£10k.. The land cost £6k. So the cost/profit was £9,k.
Having been over 30 yes in the Construction Industry I have followed with a gapping mouth interest my industry. Major charges in style or Curtain Walling, and ultra high specification and Health and Safety have caused big costs. Land prices too have been a major player. But Labour costs are not much more that the 70s.
I would think they have not keep up with inflation.
A floor tiler Carpet Fitter Roofer I employed them they were earning £1000 per week in teams of 2 working a 4 days per week. This was in the West Country not London?
So greed of the worker is not to be blamed.
A change in Land Sales will be a big help. The profits in Construction is not a big percentage but the jobs cost has gone through the roof. In the 70,s a 650 bed Hospital would cost after. Land around £8million. The last one I worked on was £80million today ?? £8 billion?.
Where has all the increases gone?
I stumbled on this information. To some it will be old hat, but to me it was new. Your DNA can be altered. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
“A genetic chimerism or chimera (/kaɪˈmɪərÉ™/ ky-MEER-É™ or /kɪˈmɪərÉ™/ kÉ™-MEER-É™, also chimaera (chimæra)) is a single organism composed of cells with more than one distinct genotype. …….
Another way that chimerism can occur in animals is by organ transplantation, giving one individual tissues that developed from a different genome. For example, transplantation of bone marrow often determines the recipient’s ensuing blood type.
………………..The DNA content of semen from an assault case in 2004 matched that of a man who had been in prison at the time of the assault, but who had been a bone marrow donor for his brother, who was later determined to have committed the crime.[33][34][35]
In 2008, A man was killed in a traffic accident that occurred in Seoul, South Korea. In order to identify him, his DNA was analyzed. Results revealed that the DNA of his blood, along with some of his organs, appeared to show that he was female. It was later determined that he had received a bone marrow transplant from his daughter………..
Natural chimeras are almost never detected unless they exhibit abnormalities such as male/female or hermaphrodite characteristics or uneven skin pigmentation. The most noticeable are some male tortoiseshell cats and calico cats (although most male tortoiseshells have an extra X chromosome responsible for the colouration) or animals with ambiguous sex organs………………..”
Funny how 100% of transgender activists who screech the loudest in the MSM and those who fly the flag of self identification happen to have been born male..
There appears little thought given to the skilled white industrial workers who were expected to move South to service the Middle and Upper class Londoners after the Big Bang of the 1980’s as relatively unskilled retail workers.
In fact the BBC reported Liverpudlian dockers were run out of town by S.Coast Police while they looked for work on the S.Coast.
But Southerners hated Northerners preferring foreigners.
I am a Transwoman and have been living as such since 1996,in which year I also legally changed my name.I have been taking oestrogen since 1995.I am also a diabetic.What is going to happen to my legal right under the Equality Act,2010 to use female public toilets?.I am very worried about the situation you support Debbie Hayton.
I look forward to your reply.
I don’t think anyone cares what toilet you use. What people are concerned about is that governments have taken it upon themselves to dictate how businesses and institutions are to organize their bathrooms. I’m now living in an area where toilets no longer have a sex assignation, which means I have to share a bathroom with women and girls. As a man this makes me very uncomfortable.
The problem with all this ‘rights’ business is that a majority of the population are forced to change their culture to accommodate a very small but vocal minority. If we disagree we are labelled bigots and homophobes.
We should just have human rights and leave it at that.
Was this intended as a nice bit of misdirection? The BLM was started and remains because of ongoing police brutality towards black people. It has nothing to do with how many British black people are members of the middle class. And it’s hard to call out the movement for false accusations when so much of what it being protested is horrible, unconscionable, and caught on tape. Those are some facts to go along with your feelings that everybody should just calm down already, it’s not that bad, everything’s fine. Jesus.
What puzzles me about this particular aspect of the ‘woke’s’ angst is that, for example, 53% of New York’s front-line police are from ethnic minorities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Therefore you (and your fellow ‘woken’) appear to be suggesting that ‘black’ police are as likely as white ones to be responsible for ‘brutalising black people’. This is as silly as it is untrue. Nor is it true that (in general) black people *are* habitually / systemically brutalised by police.
As a 30-year front line police officer, I am not saying some reform is not well overdue. The fact that it is apparently acceptable police procedure to shoot (let alone, kill) a fleeing suspect when he poses no immediate threat to anyone (including him/herself) is, for example, simply *wrong* and yet I gather this is acceptable police procedure in some parts of the US. Do police officers lose their tempers and behave inappropriately/badly/wrongly/brutally, even, of course. They are humans, too. Does this mean *all* police officers are racists and brutalise the people they serve at every opportunity (as the ‘woke’ keep raucously claiming)? Of course not!
Prejudice is another matter and, as we are all humans, we are all capable of that as it it is hard-wired into our DNA. It’s just that the more enlightened amongst us know it and choose (or not) to try to not let it show. Another expression for it is ‘good manners’.
All the hand-wringing, self-flagellation and setting stuff alight will not change this and nor will making intelligent, caring people afraid of talking about the issue for fear of being labelled a racist (or worse), let alone eroding the fundamental human right in any free society, of free speech.
Should we *try* to do something about? Sure, but just bear in mind that it’ll take millennia to correct the results of human evolution and if ‘trying’ means causing more death, misery and destruction than what we already have, then, arguably probably not.
“And it’s hard to call out the movement for false accusations when so much of what it being protested is horrible, unconscionable, and caught on tape”
Would you please advise where some of these abuses in the UK can be seen/heard?
No, BLM was started after the acquittal (correctly) of George Zimmerman on charges of murdering Trayvon Martin. The details of the case are easy to find and illustrate the dishonesty of BLM.
Do not be fooled by this wolf in sheep’s clothing! Hayton continuously writes in apparent support of women but utlimately is a man taking the podium in place of a woman. Hayton has written trans toolkits for schools in which Hayton suggests that 1 – trans teachers should use the bathrooms of their choice 2 – trans children should use the bathroom of their choice 3 – trans children should be referred to Gender Intelligence who promote Mermaids and the medicalisation of children (puberty blocker, x-sex hormones). Hayton lies, continuously. see for yourself and women don’t pander to his misogyny! He is still a man and all those luvvy-ing him up are handmaidens. Stop with the good trans – bad trans attitude . Hayton used the womens’ toilets at the last Womens Place event he spoke at – he is a hyprocrite.
https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/u…