garden court bailey

Her chambers has taken it well though.


Garden Court Chambers discriminated against one of its barristers because of her belief that males cannot become women, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Allison Bailey, a lesbian, was awarded £22,000 in damages for injury to feelings. However, her claim against Stonewall was rejected. 

Bailey's fall-out with her chambers began when she objected to Garden Court signing up to Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme in 2018, on the basis that the LGBT lobby group promoted self-ID, which maintains that a male can become a woman by identifying as one.

"There are many of us within the LGBT community who fully support trans rights but who do not support the trans-extremism that is currently being advocated by Stonewall and others in respect of the proposal for self-id", Bailey emailed her colleagues.

In response, one member said she was having dinner with Stonewall's then-chair Ruth Hunt, and would raise Bailey's concerns. "Great, now Allison’s wholly unfounded allegations are going to be aired with Ruth – nothing like washing our dirty trans-phobic laundry in public", Garden Court member Michelle Brewer wrote to a colleague.

Bailey continued to air her views after her chambers became a Diversity Champion. When Stonewall employed a transwoman who organised workshops which were billed as an opportunity for transwomen to "explore the sexual barriers” of lesbians and "strategise ways to overcome them", the barrister tweeted, "Stonewall recently hired Morgan Page, a male bodied person who ran workshops with the sole aim of coaching heterosexual men identifying as lesbians on how they can coerce young lesbians into having sex with them. Page called [it] 'overcoming the cotton ceiling' and it is popular". 

In a second tweet, Bailey referred to a Sunday Times article which she said highlighted "the appalling levels of intimidation, fear and coercion that are driving the @stonewalluk trans self-ID agenda", and in a third she celebrated the launch of gender critical gay rights charity LGB Alliance.

Her tweets generated "an avalanche” of positive and negative responses on social media, and within chambers the divisions were almost as stark. Barrister Tom Wainwright emailed management claiming that Bailey's LGB Alliance tweet was "already causing damage to our reputation", pleading, "There must be something in our constitution or diversity policy which precludes this”. 

Brewer told members that Bailey's tweets were "so intemperate" and "bloody shocking", and that "It has completely undermined our relationship with Stonewall". Notes of a trans rights meeting hosted by Garden Court recorded Brewer encouraging people to complain to Garden Court "expressing concern about Allison Bailey’s (barrister) transphobic comments on Twitter". 

When Garden Court barrister Leslie Thomas, who had just become a member of the Bar Standards Board, pointedly emailed all members of chambers with a link to the new BSB Guidance on the Use of Social Media, Bailey replied that his efforts "could be construed as intimidating to those of us who are on social media advocating for views that may not be popular, but are nonetheless entirely lawful and reasonable".

While the social media storm intensified, Garden Court was facing other difficulties. It had entered into a contract for a new software system which the head of IT would not implement because "in his view it would wreck their systems". The chambers was contractually bound to make a £100,000 payment, and the chief executive had resigned.

Despite these other issues, members agreed that the head of marketing and communication, David de Menezes, should respond to each Twitter user who asked what Garden Court was doing about Bailey with a statement, which read in part, "We are investigating concerns raised about Allison Bailey’s comments in line with our complaints/BSB policies. We take these concerns very seriously and will take all appropriate action". 

After Bailey complained that the statement was defamatory, joint head of chambers Judy Khan decided it might be a good idea to remove the tweet. But de Menezes replied that it had already been sent "to loads of people on Twitter" and that if it was deleted, "we will end up [with a] hugely adverse reaction from these people and an even more epic Twitter storm which is likely to get reported in media".

When Bailey was informed that Garden Court's responses would stay on Twitter, she exploded, "have you looked at who is sending these tweets of complaint? White men?! You are proceeding to destroy my career and smear my character, making public entirely private human resource declarations".

Garden Court conducted a probe into the matter which concluded that Bailey should delete the two tweets, but she refused, rejecting the suggestion that they breached her core duties as a barrister and arguing that the report’s reasoning was flawed and "relied far too heavily on the trans-lobby's talking points and propaganda". 

The tribunal agreed, and upheld Bailey's claims that Garden Court discriminated against her because of her belief when it tweeted that complaints would be investigated, and when it found in its report that two of her tweets were likely to breach barristers’ core duties.

"Faced with a Twitter storm on gender self-identity, they picked sides", said the tribunal. Although Garden Court's members "all professed not to have a view in the sex versus gender debate”, it was evident that “they were opposed to her", and that her less favourable treatment "was because of her views about gender self-identity and Stonewall’s role promoting gender self-identity".

The tribunal's disclosure process revealed how the case consumed Garden Court’s tenants. Barrister Rajiv Menon commented to a colleague, "Why on earth has chambers been drawn into something that has nothing to do with us? When did we start investigating the tweets of those we disagree with posting news items like the one about Allison’s new group? We have unnecessarily made Allison a martyr and got mud all over our faces in the process". Henry Blaxland QC commented, "I still don’t properly get it. Sexual politics round the trans issue makes the Brexit debate seem positively benign".

The tribunal ruled that Bailey's gender critical views - that sex was an observable reality, that people could not change sex, and also that Stonewall's stance on gender theory was driving the erosion of women's rights, access to single sex spaces and lesbian identity - were all protected beliefs under the Equality Act.

It noted that "this is not to say that the claimant is right", and that "transwomen can also need safe spaces, because they too can be subject to violence; there may too be an element of moral panic about transwomen who are not convicted sex offenders being placed in women’s prisons".

The barrister's claims that her treatment led to a reduction in her income, and that Garden Court allowed Stonewall to direct its complaint procedure, were unsuccessful. The tribunal also rejected the claim that Brewer colluded with Stonewall to generate complaints about Bailey, ruling that Brewer's advocacy had been carried out in a personal capacity.

Bailey also lost her claim that Stonewall had induced or attempted to induce Garden Court to take action against her. The allegation hinged around an email sent to the set by Stonewall's Head of Trans Inclusion, Kirrin Medcalf, in which he complained that "for Garden Court Chambers to continue associating with a barrister who is actively campaigning for a reduction in trans rights and equality, while also specifically targeting our staff with transphobic abuse on a public platform, puts us in a difficult position with yourselves: the safety of our staff and community will always be Stonewall’s first priority".

The tribunal concluded that although Medcalf "was alive to Stonewall’s soft power" via its Diversity Champions scheme, it did not consider that his letter carried the threat of brand damage.

Commenting on the outcome, Bailey tweeted, "The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief".

"I have lost my case against Stonewall, but I have succeeded in exposing Stonewall’s conduct and the enormous - and to my mind, malign - influence it wields in the workplace and in society more generally. Organisations who put ‘Stonewall Law’ before Equality Law or seek to silence others from lawfully voicing their criticism of Stonewall may be acting unlawfully & will suffer the consequences, even if Stonewall does not", she said.

In a statement, a Stonewall spokesperson said, ‘We are pleased that the Employment Tribunal has ruled in a decision published today that Stonewall has NOT been found to have instructed, caused or induced Garden Court Chambers to discriminate against Allison Bailey". It said the case "did not accurately reflect our intentions and our influence on organisations” and that “Leaders within organisations are responsible for the organisational culture and the behaviour of their employees and workers”.

Garden Court said it was "reviewing the judgment carefully with our legal team with a view to appeal".

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Comments

Tags 29 July 22 08:10

Why term her views "gender critical", I believe in gravity but I have yet to be referred to as "gravity critical". Shouldn't the minority view get the tag (gravity denier) rather than that of the majority. 

ROI 29 July 22 08:10

She crowdfunded on the basis is sticking it to Stonewall and she failed on that front. Her claim against Stonewall failed. The reporting on this generally skips over this!

Gc 29 July 22 08:28

She did effectively stick it to stonewall. Their guidance is wrong and doesn’t reflect the need to balance competing rights. 

It’s just GCC we’re so onboard with stonewall views there was no need to pressure them. 

Gobblepig 29 July 22 08:48

"there may too be an element of moral panic about transwomen who are not convicted sex offenders being placed in women’s prisons" - what a gutless statement. 

Also, what have we come to when a tribunal is saying that a belief that someone who is born with a penis is a man and someone who is born with a vagina is a woman is a protected belief under the equality act, instead of having the courage to say that it's a biological fact. 

Male Solicitor. My pronouns are self-evident 29 July 22 09:18

I would compel readers to listen to “Nolan Investigates Stonewall” on BBC iPlayer 

I'm gay for Anna 29 July 22 09:21

Oh fantastic!

No longer must the audience watch the epochal battle between the Chillites and the Annaites from afar, but can at last join them on the pitch for a glorious and golden week of whirling melee.

Thank you Alison for giving us all this opportunity.

Anonymous 29 July 22 09:23

"She crowdfunded on the basis is sticking it to Stonewall and she failed on that front. Her claim against Stonewall failed. The reporting on this generally skips over this!"

Oh, that's funny, do self-styled 'progressives' suddenly think it's very important to give great prominence to all of the heads of claim which fail where litigation is crowdfunded and conducted for ideological reasons?

They'll have to start printing articles about Jolyon's latest escapades in multiple bound volumes to keep you happy, won't they?

 

 

Or will you go all quiet about the issue again when it's claims you wish had succeeded?

I understand that 29 July 22 09:35

Damages are to be determined at a later date for some of Allison’s claims(?) So the £22k figure may go up. Well done Allison, this must have been quite the ordeal and you’ve done brilliantly. 

Paul 29 July 22 09:37

I'm not sure why employers sign up to this scheme?  I don't think it does their 'brand' any favours at least not these days.  Plenty of people don't agree with Stonewall's agenda.

Anna's Support-Mother and Support-Dog 29 July 22 09:46

"Why term her views "gender critical", I believe in gravity but I have yet to be referred to as "gravity critical". Shouldn't the minority view get the tag (gravity denier) rather than that of the majority."

Because self-described Progressives know that their ideas are unpopular with the majority of voters and so have spent the last few decades pushing those ideas by winning the game of modifying language and effecting institutional capture rather than persuading voters.

That sidesteps the need to actually win elections and to persuade regular people to vote for your far-out views because it lets you brand anyone who objects to your ideas using anything other than your newly approved terminology ("No, no, no - he's not a man who wants to turn into a woman. They are transitioning genders") as being a 'phobe' of some kind, pushes everyone who matters in policy-making circles into singing the same tune (because being branded a 'somethingphobe' is career suicide) and eventually results in the electorate being given a Hobsons Choice of two near ideologically identical options. 

So of course they're trying to arrange the approved terms of the debate as being ones which make the majority position sound like the fringe academic view. It's the only way that they could possibly stand a chance of winning it.

Self-describe as being "Pro-Reality" and stop using the words they try to force on you.

 

 

As a footnote, we are beginning to watch the limitations of the strategy described above become clear - in which electorates eventually tire of being given a series of near-identical ideological options that they don't want and so turn to the most prominent option offering something different (irrespective of that options suitability to run the more mundane day-to-day functions of governance). Which is why 'centrists' and 'progressives' are flopping in elections across the West (see: America, Britain, France).

The only real question is whether they will recognise what is happening quickly enough to change course and start offering the electorate an ideological formula that they agree with, or whether they will just flail around expecting it to naturally become their turn to rule again until a competent 'change' option eventually emerges and replaces them.

 

Chilly Willy 29 July 22 09:50

"I'm not sure why employers sign up to this scheme?  I don't think it does their 'brand' any favours at least not these days.  Plenty of people don't agree with Stonewall's agenda."

Yes, it's really gone from a positive brand association to a toxic one, hasn't it?

Suspect that the coming renewals season will be a bit of a tough one for Stonewall, with a series of mealy mouthed "testing economic times, hoping to rejoin where financial climate allows, of course we support your struggle for rights etc deep in our hearts but just not with money at this present time" letters coming their way. 

Here we go again 29 July 22 09:53

The weird Allison-champion brigade always rushes to the ROF comments section. Loving the re-write of history from "THIS IS A FIGHT AGAINST STONEWALL" to "oh no that doesn't matter how Allison funded or framed this saga" and "oh actually, she really stuck it to Stonewall"....? It makes me pretty uncomfortable to see how clearly transphobic many of my legal colleagues are. For a profession supposedly about logical thinking and analysis, it's striking many of you have the intellectual range of of a peanut when it comes to gender. 

Anonymous 29 July 22 10:30

"The weird Allison-champion brigade always rushes to the ROF comments section."

Or, as we like to call them here in the reality-based community: The General Public.

 

This isn't a small number of activists 'rushing' to a comment section. It's the majority of people disagreeing with you. Your views are those of a fringe minority.

It's not that your peers have the 'intellectual range of a peanut' and don't understand you. It's that you have subscribed to a set of crank views that enjoy little widespread support and fall apart under the mildest of critical analysis. That is why they are not catching on.

You are not a mighty intellectual pioneer leading people to a brave new world of understanding, you are just a kook hawking the latest version of new age crystal-healing.

Anonymous 29 July 22 10:58

Fingers crossed that law firms as well as barristers' chambers might now review their involvement with Stonewall. Hello, Clifford Chance at #3 on Stonewall's Top 100 Employers 2022. 

 

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/full-list-top-100-employers-2022

Anonymous 29 July 22 13:40

Wonderful outcome, and excellent to see Stonewall identified as a ridiculous money-spinner.

Paul 29 July 22 15:28

Regardless of where your sympathies lie this is surely good news for employees that they can't be fired because their employer doesn't like their politics.  What you do and say in your own time shouldn't generally be a matter for your employer.

I'm gay for Anna 29 July 22 15:43

"Saying someone is a woman because that is how they feel in their head is absurd nonsense. And saying that women should not be entitled to their own word or their own single sex spaces or sporting categories because some male people believe they feel like women in their heads is offensive, dangerous nonsense."

*Applauds in starstruck wonderment*

Bad Faith 29 July 22 17:43

This whole argument is total bad faith, culture wars nonsense. Dressing up arguments over values as arguments over language is embarrassing.

For most of human history, transgender people have been largely ignored, such that there was no real debate over the meaning of the word "woman" because it was not really acknowledged that people exist who (i) do not have XX chromosomes and (ii) nevertheless identify as members of the female gender.

Now we know that such people exist, we need to agree as a pure matter of linguistics whether the word "woman" covers such people. To me that seems a natural conclusion, as we understand the meanings of the terms "cisgender woman" and "transgender woman". Both "cisgender" and transgender are "adjectives", so if the noun "woman" excluded people whom are transgender than the term "transgender woman" would be self-contradictory. Given that term is regularly used and understood, it would be odd to conclude that it is linguistically flawed.

The real debate is over values and essentially comes down to the question of "is there any circumstance in which it would be reasonable to treat a transgender woman differently to a cisgender woman, all other things being equal?" Only a true extremist would answer no to that question. Similarly only a bigot would suggest that those circumstances extend to most parts of modern life.

Conflicts of rights exist right across society and we deal with them by assessing individual circumstances to determine the proportionate outcomes in situations where two groups have rights which are mutually incompatible. It is taken on a case by case basis. Trying to determine a single correct outcome for all situations from first principles is doomed to failure and frankly just puerile.

Is it proportionate to say trans women can't attend a women-only yoga class? Probably not, the harm caused by denying trans women this right exceeds the discomfort that some cisgender women may feel about sharing that space. Is it proportionate to say trans women can't attend certain rape survivors' groups? Probably in some cases, where there are cisgender women in the group who are so traumatised by their experience that the presence of people with biologically male characteristics would undermine the success of the therapy on offer.

What shouldn't be up for debate is that transgendered people should be respected, supported and helped to live happy and fulfilling lives and their life prospects should not be diminished as a result of their being transgender. No right thinking people disagree about that, so getting hung up on a tiny number of specific situations where treating cisgender and transgender women the same may not be the proportionate outcome misses the point and does nothing but sow division.

Stop obfuscating 29 July 22 22:07

The issue here is that the erosion of accurate language allows people to obfuscate, which makes it far easier to make points like "maybe we should let transwomen into rape shelters for ciswomen" (I feel slightly sick even typing "ciswomen") sound eminently reasonable without having to think about what is actually being proposed.

"Transwomen" are males who identify as female, where "identify as female" typically means "subscribe to regressive stereotypes about what it means to be female". Sure, there are some good old-fashioned transsexuals who have gender dysphoria and who experience genuine distress about their sex bodies, but that is not a requirement anymore to be "trans".

If you use accurate language and ask: "Should men be allowed in rape shelters for women?", suddenly it becomes much easier to say no. Even if you ask "Should men who believe they are female/would wish to be female be allowed into rape shelters for women?" you can have a more intellectually honest discussion.

SecularJurist 30 July 22 02:04

Once upon a time, the L&G was all that had existed. The B was denied existence (some stats show that the B is the majority in the LGB spectrum) and discriminated against, and still is, to some extent. Peter Tatchell is a founding member, and he fronted Outrage! in the 1980s. The agenda was toxic and the strategy was to 'out' secretly gay celebs and politicos and other public figures. He himself had been outed as gay during the Bermondsey by-election of 1983 and due to rife homophobia, he (running on the Lab ticket) lost to the Lib Dems.

The T debate has become  toxic and tribal, and certain organisations have created a climate of fear, is destroying free speech, careers, and is in total denial of biological fact.

good faith 30 July 22 10:24

The real debate is over values and essentially comes down to the question of "is there any circumstance in which it would be reasonable to treat a transgender woman differently to a cisgender woman, all other things being equal?" Only a true extremist would answer no to that question.

Agreed. The trouble is, all other things on this topic r never equal, cos that xy vs xx thing quite literally starts producing biological differences from the moment of those zinc fireworks going off round the egg.

Which unfortunately rather renders the rest of your post a little redundant.

It is a moral debate around competing rights of two different experiences - those of natal women and those of transgender women - whose rights should be supreme?

Sometimes that’s easy - should transgender women be supported and respected for their choices and who they are? Yes, without question.

Sometimes it’s a bit tricky - should transgender women be allowed to use women’s lavatories? Then it depends on a multitude of factors such as privacy, the nature (physical) of their transition might be included, etc.

Sometimes it’s extremely difficult - should transgender women who commit crimes be imprisoned with women? Then it depends similarly on a multitude of factors, including the nature of their crime and the safety of other women in the prison, their safety if placed in a men’s prison and again might include questions around the nature of their transition

Sometimes it’s almost impossible - should transgender women be able to participate in female sports? All scientific evidence to date (which of course may change) indicates that there are manifest physical differences - not just in strength, size and endurance, but even in the way the body responds - between people born xx and people born xy from a very early age, if not birth. Those physical differences become indisputable from the onset of pubescence. It is not possible, at least currently, safely and with certainty, to reverse or obviate those differences. Trying to do so creates serious moral questions for the medical profession - just the health of the transgender person taking the synthetic drugs, let alone the idea of transitioning earlier than adulthood (or even, gulp, pubescence) when capacity for consent is a major concern.

To long; didn’t read? I can summarise as: nobody is fooled by pretending this is a simple debate, so do not try to create a straw man.

Anonymous 31 July 22 08:07

Good! Finally time for the wheels to come off the batshit crazy Stonewall trans project. The emperor has no clothes! 

Bring the support dog 31 July 22 08:47

How on earth can anyone construe this as a win for Stonewall? Yes, Allison did not succeed in her claim against them, but GCC followed their incorrect and misleading advice, with the result that GCC has been found guilty of discrimination and now has to pay aggravated damages. This is a specialist human rights set FFS! How embarrassing. 

See also the disclosures during the claim - including the rapey af workshop to gaslight, manipulate, coerce and bully lesbians into having sex with heterosexual men. (Nothing to pressure gay men into having sex with trans men I see. It’s just women that aren’t a 100% sure of who they do and don’t want to sleep with, I take it). 

See also Stonewall’s claim this week that 2 year olds “know their trans identity”!!! 

How can any sane employer now believe anything Stonewall says or want anything to do with them?! 
 

 

Anonymous 31 July 22 09:00

Sometimes it’s extremely difficult - should transgender women who commit crimes be imprisoned with women? Then it depends similarly on a multitude of factors, including the nature of their crime and the safety of other women in the prison, their safety if placed in a men’s prison and again might include questions around the nature of their transition” 

No it isn’t extremely difficult at all. The rights and needs of women come before the desires of men, end of. Any danger to transwomen in prison comes from other men, not from women. There is a tacit admission there, that solving the problem of men’s violence is too hard a task, so far easier to stick transwomen in a women’s prison with all the attendant risk to the health and safety of women that comes with that. Transwomen show the same rates of offending, including for violent and sexual crimes as other men. (There are more transwomen murderers in prison than there are transwomen murder victims - so much for “most marginalised”). Secondly there is no evidence that they are at more risk from other men, than for example, gay men, or disabled men in men’s prisons. Do we let any man with any vulnerabilities into women’s prisons to protect them? Or do we tackle the problem of men’s violence towards other men instead. Women are not fucking support humans, here to validate the identities of everyone else. Our rights matter. We matter. 

Human 31 July 22 09:06

If transgender activists are being disingenuous about biology, gender critical activists are being disingenuous about the objective existence of a specifically female culture.

 

Wearing a skirt and makeup is not a regressive stereotype of womanly culture. Neither is long hair, jewellery or all the other things women do to feel feminine. When natal males adopt female culture it is preposterous to deny that it is a specifically female culture they are adopting. Some women seen to find that adoption challenging, a form of cultural appropriation, or a potential challenge to the multiple privileges women receive from society and the state.

 

Pointing to the tiny number of females who don't adopt female culture is the gender critical equivalent of transgender activists pointing to the tiny number of intersex individuals.

 

That's not to say both sides are equally disingenuous. Culture obviously evolve far faster than genes. But culture is absolutely, objectively real.

Ignoramus 31 July 22 13:31

Anonymous 31 July 22 09:00

Sometimes it’s extremely difficult - should transgender women who commit crimes be imprisoned with women? Then it depends similarly on a multitude of factors, including the nature of their crime and the safety of other women in the prison, their safety if placed in a men’s prison and again might include questions around the nature of their transition” 

No it isn’t extremely difficult at all. The rights and needs of women come before the desires of men, end of. Any danger to transwomen in prison comes from other men, not from women. There is a tacit admission there, that solving the problem of men’s violence is too hard a task, so far easier to stick transwomen in a women’s prison with all the attendant risk to the health and safety of women that comes with that. Transwomen show the same rates of offending, including for violent and sexual crimes as other men. (There are more transwomen murderers in prison than there are transwomen murder victims - so much for “most marginalised”). Secondly there is no evidence that they are at more risk from other men, than for example, gay men, or disabled men in men’s prisons. Do we let any man with any vulnerabilities into women’s prisons to protect them? Or do we tackle the problem of men’s violence towards other men instead. Women are not fucking support humans, here to validate the identities of everyone else. Our rights matter. We matter.”

Well it looks like you either didn’t read or didn’t understand the post you’re quoting. 

Human 01 August 22 12:26

Our lived reality is that women have handbags and skirts. They consume fashion pages in magazines. 

It's not a stereotype if 99 percent of women conform to it, and it's ludicrous to suggest that the vast majority of women are regressive. It's another form of faux not knowing what a woman is, an abstract notion of a purely biological womanhood in which a specifically female culture does not exist. This just does not match up with how women chose to live their lives.

I'm not denying the reality of biological sex. That's a straw man argument.

What you are denying is the lived reality of a specifically female culture.

One can imagine numerous evolutionary biological reasons as to why women adopt a specifically female culture. But that is to make lived reality unnecessarily abstruse.

Women are overwhelmingly more likely to wear skirts, they are not regressive for doing so, and this is a readily observable fact on an underground train near you.

Human 01 August 22 12:31

If 99 percent of people have xy or xx chromosomes, gender critical people say that this means that there are only two human sexes and intersex individuals are sufficiently atypical for that truism to be true.

Yet if 99 percent of women adopt a specifically female culture, it is regressive and stereotypical to notice this.

It's a case of feigning ignorance of reality. There are two sexes, and overwhelmingly only one of them wear handbags. Deal with it.

Anna's Support-Mother and Support-Dog 01 August 22 12:34

"Sometimes it’s extremely difficult - should transgender women who commit crimes be imprisoned with women? Then it depends similarly on a multitude of factors"

No. It's a really easy question, just as soon as you ask it in plain English and stop using the absurd nomenclature that aspiring social-engineers try to push on you in order to make it impossible to talk clearly about the underlying issues.

So ask yourself: "Should biological men who commit crimes be imprisoned with biological men, or with biological women".

Oh, look at that! It's suddenly really obvious. When we stop framing the question in synthetic language designed to channel us into giving only the answers that the question writers want, the answer is clear: With Other Biological Men.

Isn't it amazing what we can do when we don't obscure questions with gibberish newspeak?!

 

I know, I know, "But what about the supposed 'multitude of factors'? Don't you know that some of those biological men wish they were biological females and spend their lives trying to live as such, that'll make prison a really tough place for the, what about the risk to them?!". 

Well, what about it? They aren't actually biological females, they only wish they were. So why would they get a transfer to a facility for actual biological females?

We don't transfer other potentially vulnerable prisoners with 'multitudes of factors' making them vulnerable. There's no special tickets to womens prisons for weedy men, or for men from social groups that are likely to incur malicious behaviour from other inmates. We feel totally fine managing their risk within the male estate - be that by way of housing them in lower security settings, or by way of isolation units.

So why suddenly lose sight of reality and start sending this particular sub-group to the female estate? It just doesn't make any sense.

 

 

Put another way, what other groups of prisoners who wish they were something else are you going to advocate accommodating next? Perhaps a Nazareth Estate for everyone with a Messiah Complex? A highly secure stable-block for everyone who self identifies as equine? A nice little town for those who self-ID as 'innocent'?

Oh, wait, we don't do that because it would be completely absurd... so why are we contemplating it for biological men who wish they were women?

It just doesn't make sense when you ask the question in English.

 

 

Final fun fact: over 50% of trans-identifying prisoners are on the inside for sex offences of one kind or another, the overwhelming majority committed against women. So if they really wanted to stay out of male prisons, the easiest way for them to do that would be to stop sexually assaulting women.

Boo hoo, boo hoo, don't say awkward facts like that you are "pushing harmful tropes". No I'm not. It's an objective fact which you just hate saying out loud because it reminds people how insane it is to house male criminals with the female ones.

Anonymous 01 August 22 14:08

You say: "Well it looks like you either didn’t read or didn’t understand the post you’re quoting."

 

Which is a bit embarrassing for you, given that you are replying to a post which systematically dismantles the original post and couldn't possibly be written by someone who hadn't actually read or understood it.

Anonymous 02 August 22 08:01

"It makes me pretty uncomfortable to see how clearly transphobic many of my legal colleagues are."

If they are saying genuinely transphobic things, then I agree that's a concern.  If they are asserting that biological sex is immutable and that Stonewall is now behind a campaign that has misogynistic qualities, then that is not transphobic, nor does it further the cause of genuine transwomen and transmen.

 

Anonymous 02 August 22 08:12

"For most of human history, transgender people have been largely ignored, such that there was no real debate over the meaning of the word "woman" because it was not really acknowledged that people exist who (i) do not have XX chromosomes and (ii) nevertheless identify as members of the female gender.

Now we know that such people exist, we need to agree as a pure matter of linguistics whether the word "woman" covers such people"

This is arrant nonsense.  The existence of transfolk has been known about and, in some communities, they have been accepted for an extremely long time.  In Western society, people who feel profoundly they have been born in the wrong body (previously called transsexuals) have been the subject of both prejudice and acceptance.

What has changed is that a small group of lobbyists have hijacked the position of transsexuals and redefined the concept of trans to include anyone who says they identify as the opposite sex.  And they have used this to exploit those who want to be inclusive to erode spaces previously considered the preserve of women.

Stonewall and the TRAs are neither pro-trans (in the original sense of the term) nor pro-women.

If you claim to support transfolk, listen to why some people are so concerned about the TRA position, so some proper research and apply some critical thinking.  

 

Anonymous 02 August 22 08:19

"It is a moral debate around competing rights of two different experiences - those of natal women and those of transgender women - whose rights should be supreme?

Sometimes that’s easy - should transgender women be supported and respected for their choices and who they are? Yes, without question."

You have set this up as an either/or choice, then said that transwomen should be supported without question.  At least you are honest in your dismissal of natal women's rights.

And in any case, it is a false dichotomy.  It is entirely possibly to support transwomen without compromising the areas and arenas reserved for natal women to offset the disadvantage they suffer by dint of their biological sex. 

Anonymous 02 August 22 08:23

"If transgender activists are being disingenuous about biology, gender critical activists are being disingenuous about the objective existence of a specifically female culture."

GC activists do not argue there is a specifically female culture.  You are mixing up their views with the TRAs.  GCs argue there is no female culture - just the consequences of biological reality.

Do some research before advocating your position.

Anonymous 02 August 22 14:11

Precisely, Anon @ 8:23. The GC idea is that “gender” - understood to be socially constructed expectations of what the sexes should do and how they should behave, etc - is a load of rubbish and is damaging to everyone. A gender non-conforming male or female should therefore be allowed to get on with it and live in peace, free from harassment. That doesn’t mean they are actually the other sex, however, and that they should be entitled to access spaces designated as single-sex for the other sex.

I am going to need to see the science 02 August 22 14:45

If 99 percent of people have xy or xx chromosomes, gender critical people say that this means that there are only two human sexes and intersex individuals are sufficiently atypical for that truism to be true.

100% of people have xx or xy chromosomes. Some might have more than one x or y, but no one has neither, because what other option is there?! Show me the third gamete. It’s not gender critical people saying this, because it’s illiterate nonsense. Gender critical people say that there are only two sexes, xy and xx, male and female and that this is the proven basis of all mammalian life on earth. The existence of inter sex people showing defects in development which give them xxy or xyx or other variables  doesn’t render that fact false, in the same way that people born with one leg or no legs doesn’t mean that suddenly it’s incorrect to say that Homo sapiens are bipedal. 

Yet if 99 percent of women adopt a specifically female culture, it is regressive and stereotypical to notice this.

It is regressive when this is alleged to be the basis on which one can be assessed to be a woman, or a man because gender is a completely social construct which varies throughout history and across societies and culture. Do women “adopt” a specifically female culture or is it imposed on them? How about you ask the women in Afghanistan right now. 
 

It is regressive and stereotypical because nutters like Stonewall and the TRAs allege that because a girl likes short hair, baggy clothes and playing football this means she is a man, or conversely a boy who likes makeup, skirts and dolls must be a girl, which is a totally stupid, superficial and regressive analysis which completely ignores the misogynistic, homophobic patriarchal culture we live in and the sometimes deadly consequences which can follow from adopting the dress, clothes, toys of the other sex.

It's a case of feigning ignorance of reality. There are two sexes, and overwhelmingly only one of them wear handbags. Deal with it. 

Laughable that any proponent of gender woo nonsense can accuse anyone else of “ignorance of reality”. Please explain in clear language with reference to peer reviewed studies how someone is able to change their sex through the power of wishful thinking. Any sentence that includes the word “feelings” will be rightly ignored. Also is wearing a handbag now the diagnostic criteria for whether one is a woman? You should let the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians know. 

ClutchingPearls 02 August 22 15:25

Odds seem pretty good that Brewer has a lifetime subscription to The Guardian.

lollercopter 03 August 22 08:30

“Anonymous 01 August 22 14:08

You say: "Well it looks like you either didn’t read or didn’t understand the post you’re quoting."

Which is a bit embarrassing for you, given that you are replying to a post which systematically dismantles the original post and couldn't possibly be written by someone who hadn't actually read or understood it.”

 

Making broadly the same point as the original post, but angrily, with less nuance and without appreciating that the perspective leads broadly to the same conclusion is not, by any reasonable measure, “systematically” (or in any other way) dismantling a post…

Human 03 August 22 19:05

So some pretty irate comments ostensibly predicated on the percentage of women who wear handbags being so much higher than the percentage of people with intersex conditions as to constitute a moral difference.

I'm not sure what percentage of women wear handbags, and I don't think my critics bothered finding out either. I'm pretty sure it's very high.

Would their outrage quell if they found that 99.9 percent of women did in fact wear handbags? How true does a truism need to be to be elevated from a regressive stereotype to a truth?

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This isn't the 1950s calling. It's the real world in 2022. Gender critical women pretend specifically female social habits either are a regressive effect of the patriarchy or does not exist: but gendered behaviour is everywhere. Women have distinct interests, culture, friendships and social habits on average compared to men. This is a readily observable fact. There are less men on Mumsnet than women. Mumsnet exists because women enjoy a specifically female environment. My question to gender critical people are why are you judging other people (mainly other women) for being their authentic selves? Why are you judging yourselves?

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Contrary to the claim of 08:23 above about the true beliefs of gender critical people,  at least one gender critical person - Ms Bailey - claimed utter naivety in paragraph 6 of her witness statement about what it means to feel like a woman.

I don't believe her. It is utterly absurd Truespeak, as absurd to my ears as men claiming to have periods. 

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I am a man. I feel like a man when I get filthy dirty on my own digging foundations for my man cave in the garden. A minority of women might enjoy that, and that is fine. My daughters love playing with glitter, unicorns, and dolls.  Some boys would enjoy that, and that is fine. What is needed is freedom for everyone to be themselves.

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The lived reality is that most women are authentically inclined to what gender critics call harmful regressive female stereotypes. Most men are authentically inclined towards what they would call toxic masculinity.

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I think it is judgemental for gender critical people to use that kind of language against other people, and, if they were being honest, against themselves, for being authentic. I think it is a form of abusive gaslighting to doubt the authenticity of that widespread inclination.

Human 03 August 22 19:10

Just to the straw men bashers vigorously disputing the notion that a man can become a woman by wishful thinking  I AGREED WITH THAT NOTION.

Thank you 

Human 04 August 22 15:21

I hate reducing this to a poor me oppression Olympics, but you *are* being pejorative about both yourselves and the majority of people on this planet who practice gender specific cultural practices,  outrageous "1950s calling " acts such as women having handbags or watching Love Island more than men. Gender critical people refer to such specific cultural practices as "regressive stereotypes." 

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It is a core part of the gender critical belief system that either most women either don't act in specifically feminine ways or if they do so it's a regressive misogynistic conspiracy forced on women by The Patriarchy (TM), (in collaboration with the Rothschild Elders of Zion's Deep State Weather Control Space Laser)

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Both those possibilities are not consistent with normative reality, in the same way that men claiming to be biological women is not consistent with normative reality.

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A significant group of male people consistently and authentically act in objectively effeminate ways, and vice versa, To pretend such cultural practices are entirely uncorrelated with biological sex is simply to ignore reality.

Somehow you are going to have construct a theory of femininity that admits of both the empirical reality of biology and the empirical reality of women enjoying specifically feminine things like handbags. Biological males cannot become biological women but they can in an authentically and in objectively meaningful way adopt feminine culture..

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