Freddy McConnell
@freddymcconnell
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Freelance journalist, words @VICE @Guardian . Pride & Joy podcast. Dad due to give birth again early 2022. He/him. RT ≠ endorsement. contact @freddymcconnell .com
London, UK
Joined January 2009
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Pinned Tweet
Our petition is live!
'Recognise LGBTQ+ parents equally on UK birth certificates'
Thanks to
@HoCpetitions
for working with us to get the wording right. Please sign and share!
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I have a cervix. I am a man.
Mr Javid, tell me otherwise to my face. I dare you.
Total denial of scientific fact.
And he wants to run the NHS.
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Given what Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Ben Stokes have taught us, the lack of concern for Laurel Hubbard's mental health through all this is beyond shameful.
Your concern for cis athletes rings hollow if you're happy to dehumanise and vilify a trans athlete in the next breath.
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JOURNALISTS, YOU CANNOT LEGITIMATELY "DISCUSS" OUR RIGHTS AND HUMANITY WITHOUT TALKING TO US FFS THIS IS *BASIC*
ps it's fine for you to just *not* discuss us constantly. it's fine for you to leave us tf alone
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I'm on BBC Radio 4 PM today (around 5:30/45) to ask
@sajidjavid
whether his tweet, about *only* women having cervixes, is his way of announcing that this government no longer recognises the Equality Act or the Gender Recognition Act. 🤡
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Ofcom ditching Stonewall doesn't mean Ofcom is anti-trans. It means the anti-trans cult's "two sides" narrative is not only landing but winning.
It shows the UK still can't recognise an anti-LGBTQ+ moral panic when it's playing our media and public institutions for total mugs.
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Sadly true. GC abuse directed at me on here for becoming a parent is the cruellest and most energetic I've experienced by some distance
If you want proof GC is a hate movement, you just need to look at how they treat trans men who give birth. They say hateful things, imply the child will be harmed and oppose the father's right to call themselves a father. In NO CONCEIVABLE WAY does this affect 'women's rights'
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Not sure why
@thetimes
felt it necessary to publish this egregiously offensive "letter to the editor", in which someone who is evidently bigoted against trans people repeatedly misgenders me.
Is a complaint likely to be a waste of my time?
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@PhilipPullman
Gender Critical is what those with anti-trans prejudice call themselves to appear civil. It comes from the misapprehension that trans people endorse a essentialist, binary view of gender. It also implies trans people want to erase 'sex' in favour of 'gender', which we do not.
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No, it's not possible to be Gender Critical and trans positive.
"Gender Critical" was coined to describe trans-exclusionary feminism because "Terf" went from being a badge of honour to un-PC.
"Gender Critical feminism" and transphobia aren't just linked, they are synonymous.
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Put out a report on the UK's trans healthcare crisis and all is eerily quiet on the "gender critical" front... 🤡👀
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Six years after having given up in the face of rising wave of transphobia in the UK, I felt ready to write about it again.
The wave is bigger now but I think I can just about see a high water mark.
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Rather than make screening inclusive for trans men, the NHS effectively scares us into getting hysterectomies by implying that T increases our risk for ovarian cancer.
In fact, there's no evidence that it does.
We just need screening. You just need to update your bloody IT.
Excl: Ian Duncan, the deputy speaker of the House of Lords, talks for the first time about how his brother died of ovarian cancer - to encourage better awareness and screening of cancer in trans people.
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Why are you obsessed with trans people? Why do you talk about us in such offensive and inaccurate ways?
Trans people use appropriate spaces/services thanks to the Equality Act, not Stonewall. 🤷♂️
Maybe stop letting your bigotry fan flames of social division? Get a new hobby?
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Genuine question: why aren't "GC feminists" writing outraged columns about this?
Namibia's Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi have been withdrawn from the 400m race at the Olympics by World Athletics.
They are said to not be eligible for female classification.
The same rules are affecting Caster Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Wambui.
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174 cis athletes affirm their support for trans athletes
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As we enter
#PrideMonth
and witness cis lefties team up with our proto-fascist govt to discredit Stonewall*, remember:
"Gender critical feminism†" literally only exists to undermine the rights and social acceptance of trans people.
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Before any more UK journalists recycle this lazy line about
@stonewalluk
giving Essex Uni "incorrect and potentially illegal" MAYBE DO SOME ACTUAL REPORTING?
For starters, the High Court has reviewed such claims (AEA v EHRC) and dismissed them wholesale... (1/?)
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"Sex-based rights" is a transphobic dog whistle, pass it on.
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Just because it's not surprising doesn't mean it's not outrageous for our health secretary to casually out himself as a transphobe, knowing he'll face zero consequences.
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Happy
#InternationalPronounsDay
! I'm Freddy, I'm a dad, a writer and I'm trans.
My pronouns are he/him. They help describe, but don't define, me. What are yours?
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I find this very-common "gender critical" misconception very annoying. 🙃
I was a man before, during and after pregnancy. Legally, yes, but more importantly, subjectively, socially and physically.
Newsflash: trans men are not men because of our body parts. Neither are cis men.
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I look rough. I feel rough. Just because we do something doesn’t make it easy. In fact, it’s very hard, for myriad reasons.
It’s
#TransAwarenessWeek
and my lil PSA is that:
🔈TRANS PEOPLE DO HARD THINGS🔈 1/3
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This. This is disinformation and it's proving incredibly sticky and insidious.
Stonewall's advice and the EHRC guidance it's based on are *accurate*. The courts have ruled on this.
@freddymcconnell
Stonewall has been giving false info about what the law is and has really become a lobby group for what the law should be, while getting paid by the government and other huge organisations to judge them on how they follow the law. That line won't hold.
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Three THREE
@ObserverUK
pieces spouting thinly-veiled transphobia and/or misrepresenting the Equality Act in one day.
(All by wealthy, straight, cis writers obvs)
Huns, you're obsessed. You're also bigoted and undermining women's safety. But mostly, you're OBSESSED!
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This government's neglect, and increasingly its abuse of its trans citizens is a disgrace, as is the opposition's cowardly refusal to call it out.
Today's Labour party is less of an ally to us than the Tories were a mere 3 years ago.
🚨 This is an urgent
#TransRightsProtest
. 🚨
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While I find mainstream endorsement of RD's transphobia terrifying on a personal level, I'm impressed by the scale of the con.
She's literally cast herself as the victim of her own bigotry *and* says "I don't want this to be a story" while speaking to all major UK media outlets.
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Allison Bailey is a conspiracy theorist.
Neither puberty blockers nor testosterone cause sterility. Not 100% of the time, not *ever*. We orgasm, are sexually satisfied lol AND bear children.
If she's really so "concerned", why block me and everyone else she's trying to "save"?
Allison Bailey's justifying herself, and it's going as well as you'd expect.
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Calling out the so-called LGB Alliance as transphobic and anti-equality is accurate + politically neutral.
@TaiwoOwatemi
puts other politicians to shame.
The media also fail on this. Most reports never even mention Stock's trusteeship as a *key motivator* of the Sussex protests.
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Feminism and trans-exclusion are mutually exclusive.
Self-ID already exists and does not harm anyone.
Kid yourself all you want that "the majority" agree with you when polling consistently shows the opposite.
Stop spreading hate and misinformation.
I also have feminist and gender critical beliefs which mean that whilst I've always fully supported the rights of all trans people to live freely as they choose, I do not accept self-ID as a passport for male-bodied biological men to enter protected spaces for biological women..
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Motion to never refer to the so-called
@ALLIANCELGB
without "so-called" (à la mainstream media with "so-called Islamic State")
a) because the so-called LGB Alliance mustn't be given a free pass to misrepresent lesbian, gay and bi people.
b) because it will annoy them.
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But a serious offer to enlighten you... face to face, man to man... if you've got the cojones (by which, obviously, I mean ovaries).
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@PhilipPullman
Perhaps the greatest irony in all this is that, according to a plain reading of the term, trans people are likely the most gender critical in all of society. People would realise this if they only cared to ask.
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Must be SWEET being "gender critical". 😍
Knowing that national media outlets aren't keen on "the trans" but always have an uncritical platform with a big juicy headline for you.
AND you're not even inconvenienced by standards like journalistic integrity and fact?! 😍
#blessed
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Transphobe writes book "about" trans people.
Book is endorsed by transphobe.
Book is promoted by transphobe journalists, for consumption by middle class transphobes, to pontificate on around fire baskets in spacious gardens.
The media elite circle jerk is self-sustaining.
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I have GREAT news for you, Janet
@The_Real_JSP
...
because, unlike you, I actually read the guidance!
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🚨Newsflash🚨: Olympic weightlifting is not a priority for trans people.
Healthcare crises are. 5+ year NHS waiting lists and indefinite surgery stoppages, both studiously ignored by UK media. Let's talk about *this*.
Start HERE ⬇️ Watch/comment/share ⬇️
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What kind of BBC balance allows
@JustinOnWeb
to say that Stock has been "abused" by students who "falsely accuse" her of transphobia??
Webb is *clearly* sympathetic to anti-trans ideology and knows he'll get away with barely concealing it on national radio.
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Yes, but now hundreds of anti-trans activists have threatened to attack and kill me, piled on with misogyny and hate, and questioned my ability to parent and the safety of my child I've realised that this movement poses no risk to trans people and civil society whatsoever.
Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I’ve realised that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever.
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In other news, the Pope remains a catholic.
Women's and trans rights are not in conflict, says Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner
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Did the
@GoodLawProject
's High Court win undoing some of the harm of Bell v Tavistock really get no mainstream media coverage?
Please tell me I missed something...?
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Hope
@Ofcom
doesn't have any trans workers. Imagine your employer announcing it cares more about debating your existence than it does your actual existence.
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The Times literally won't speak to trans people (e.g. I was interviewed about
@theseahorsefilm
and it got spiked) but will repeatedly give Gl*nner a fawning platform.
Ofc trans people see thru their "we're doing journalism" act but *everyone else does too*. Folk aren't stupid.
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Everyone sharing and eviscerating the copy/pasted
@BBCNews
complaint response is a *great* look for our national broadcaster... 🙃
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Trans men: We exist too.
The universe: Oh hey, you need a figurehead that everyone recognises
TM: Umm...
TU: Like Caitlyn Jenner?
TM: Wait, no. She's trans but does *not* represent us.
TU: About this Buck Angel dude? He's loud and opinionated?
TM: OH FUCK NO.
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Gender Crits, sorry to rub it in but...
if you ally with an anti-feminist, Islamophobic crypto fascist against one of society's most vulnerable minorities, you are, by definition, the bad guys. 🤷♂️
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Classy from Joanne. Imply the guy is telling her to "sit down and shut up" when he's been nothing but polite. Then set your thousands of equally rude, trans-exclusionary followers on him. Truly classy.
Judging by the tsunami of supportive emails and letters I've received, if women learned anything from the response to my post it wasn't that they should sit down and shut up. Solidarity to the brave and fabulous
@millihill
(and I love your books, by the way!)
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Sharing again because this story is important to understanding the British trans moral panic and it got no promotion on the Guardian UK homepage...
NEW: how misinformation about a spa in Los Angeles led to violence and abuse targeting trans women in LA.
@LoisBeckett
and I on Wi Spa and the convergence of far-right and anti-trans movements across the globe.
(thread)
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I did work experience with
@emilydugan
at the Indy when I was just starting out in journalism. Wow. 💔
What absolute total nonsense from The Times in their continued hostility towards trans kids! 😣
As anyone with half a brain will patently see, trans kids are bullied and relentlessly attacked - Why on *earth* would a gay kid choose to “be trans”? 😖
➡️
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I very rarely write opinion pieces but it's reached a point with transphobia in the UK we it feels like trans people have to beg and plead to be heard.
If you are trans in the UK and have a cut to share, please do...
#deathbyathousandcuts
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Roll up roll up! It's the annual circus of the LGB Alliance Against Trans People (registered charity 1194148)!
🤡🤡🤡
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The
@UKHouseofLords
is currently debating DELIBERATELY excluding trans people like me from protective legislation by changing DEFAULT language from "people" to "women".
This is what we mean when we say we're under attack. And no one even realises, let alone helps to defend.
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To be clear, the "pregnant people" wording does not come from trans people or even trans allies. It's nothing to do with trans people. It is standard legislative wording, in line with the Interpretation Act 1978.
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I don't think sharing this will achieve anything but...
it's a clarifying insight into the mind of a HoL peer, who has the power to vote on legislation that supposedly makes the UK a fairer and more equal society...
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ps. I was a staff journalist for years. I know how little time/expertise there is.
But this isn't "in the weeds", it's fundamental. You can't report on an issue as if the High Court has not examined it when it has.
The media's blindspot on trans rights is a national scandal.
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BUT in 2021 Britain, if trans people are included in legal protections, *even accidentally*, a certain demographic of powerful cis people will go out of their way to make sure it does not stand.
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@sajidjavid
*to clarify, to ask him via Evan Davis. The offer of a man-to-man chat still stands though
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Heartened to see this largely backfiring into a sinister self-own.
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Terfs, inc an LGB Alliance cofounder, tried to take the
@EHRC
to court but the judge had no time for it.
Why are these vexatious attempts to undermine trans rights going unreported?
Why aren't media asking where the *£100,000* came from to "crowdfund" this nonsense claim?
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Yesterday Stonewall clarified: "Our advice is based on the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Equality Act Code of Practice, which was recently reaffirmed in the High Court."
But their response is not included in reporting by e.g. the BBC, The Guardian, The Times etc.
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My comment piece was painstakingly fact checked yet
@soniasodha
is free to misinform and omit crucial context (e.g. Reindorf's claims were dismissed by the High Court in AEA v EHRC).
Meanwhile Trans Pride gets no mention in
@guardian
news coverage.
WHO IS BEING SILENCED, HUN?
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Exciting news! I have a new column
@VICE
all about trans fertility, pregnancy and family. It just launched and I'll be answering questions on their Instagram later today...
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Listen again from 17:49:50 🤓
A couple of points I wish I'd made but happy overall. Thanks
@EvanHD
. Mr
@sajidjavid
, the offer of a chat still stands...
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Announcement: My first picture book will be published next year by
@PuffinBooks
!
It's a book for all families; to see themselves reflected or to learn about difference. It is about having everything we need, no matter how our families are created or who is in them. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
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They all exploit the misogynist murder of Sarah Everard as an excuse to attack trans women, which is, of course, itself misogyny.
Trans women and femmes are the *most likely* victims of male violence, you utter raging arseholes.
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Is this not the definition of a vexatious complaint?
The legal term "gender reassignment" not only correctly and deliberately encompasses gender identity and trans status, it explicitly protects nonbinary people (Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover).
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Prominent "feminists" and "progressives" are complaining that taxpayer money is going to a prominent LGBT+ charity.
Read that again.
Like, I know why we're in this upside down situation in the UK but when you pause to think about it, it still puts a zap on your brain.
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As per, the anti-trans lobby is having a debate about "bodies" while ignoring the rights of people.
They're also successfully orchestrating the UK's trans moral panic: their fantasy about what they *want* the law to say, informed by their false and malicious ideas of who we are.
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NB(2) It was *so* refreshing to work with a US outlet. No false both-sides-ing, no debating fundamental rights, no fear of me not being taken seriously as a trans journalist.
Only slight struggle was conveying to US colleagues *how bad* things are for trans people in the UK. 🙃
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Supporting people's right "to live without persecution or abuse" while simultaneously undermining, monstering and lying about them via your large media platform isn't the "support" you think it is, Jan
@OwenJones84
@MatthewdAncona
@helenlewis
Plus feminists like me overwhelmingly support trans rights to live without discrimination or abuse. We have marched for LGBT rights our entire lives. But there are crunch points with women’s rights. And we want to be heard when they are resolved.
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The truth about the coordinated homophobic bullying of my friend and ally Owen
(and about that "Suzanne Moore letter" which was never about Suzanne Moore)
Please read!
Enough is enough.
Here is my comprehensive rebuttal of Douglas Murray's entirely false piece - and a response to wider myths and lies propagated by anti-trans activists, including about events at The Guardian.
Please do read - and share the truth.
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It's directed at me and my kid. They seem to relish expressing faux concern for "the poor child" as well as asserting that I must be a terrible, abusive parent.
Obvs there's misgendering but also lots of "you're a misogynistic narcissist invading women's spaces" etc.
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Call me naive but how is the health sec coming out as an unsubtle transphobe not headlines news?
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Stonewall advised that: "gender identity or trans status” are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.
Essex Uni report countered that: "this is not the case... the law instead protects the characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’."
🙃🙃🙃
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Just read a 2017 interview with our Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch in which she cites Thatcher as her hero and says:
"Previously racism was wrong. Now it’s OK to be prejudiced provided it’s against the patriarchy, or it’s OK to be sexist if it’s a middle-aged man."
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But the worst kind of ignorance relates to accusations of harm and abuse I am supposedly commiting due to having medically transitioned.
There's no curiosity about how lots of trans men have babies, just arrogant certainty that it *must* be harmful to our kids (hint: it is not).
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So again, journalists, before regurgitating this "incorrect and potentially illegal" line again without context, maybe do some reporting...
and examine your own biases while you're at it.
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To give an example of this so-called "incorrect and potentially illegal" advice...
(so-called by trans exclusionary radical feminists with nothing better to do than harras trans people, in case you're new here)
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Two quick points of clarification:
The letter was NOT about Suzanne. She assumes it was because it suits her to.
And she may not have leaked the letter but she choose to leak the NAMES of hundreds of colleagues. This reckless and selfish act has gone completely unmentioned.
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Trans people are being driven to desperation and the UK media has blood on its hands.
A recent study found exposure to negative media messages was associated with poor mental health among trans people (Hughto et al 2021). We call on newspaper editors to be socially responsible by ensuring that coverage of trans issues is proportionate, accurate and humanising.
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Perhaps the only thing the Bell vs Tavistock judgement makes clear is that the judiciary is catastrophically ignorant of trans people and our lives.
The same is true of both judgements in our fight for trans parents to be taken into account in birth registration.
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My fight to register as father or parent was about this exact same issue: the outdatedness of the UK's whole birth registration system. How it fails *all* LGBT+ families
No media outlet wanted to acknowledge this or hear me talk about it
Congrats/solidarity to Gemma and Kate!
It doesn’t take much to be inclusive.
LGBT+ parents shouldn’t have to fight for basic recognition, it’s the 21st century for goodness sake.
Huge congratulations to new mums Gemma & Kate Fox!
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This week, if you want to start making a difference to how trans people are understood and treated in the UK, read Shon Faye's book. The end.
#TransAwarenessWeek
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Stonewall: "In most contexts, gender identity is an appropriate, inclusive, and well-understood term, so – in line with the UK Government and with international standards – we talk about gender identity in our everyday communications."
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There's threats of harm and social services. Endless, staggering levels of ignorance about trans people and our rights (often relating to my court case, which they *do not* understand).
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NB(1) The original script involved interviewing a gender critical person or organisation but all those we approached said no.
So much for open and honest discussion!?
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We need to grapple with the fact GC feminists think trans-inclusive feminists do exactly what we say *they* do, i.e. "reduce women to their body parts".
Yes, they ignore that trans men aren't women and are often transphobic. But just saying this ad nauseum won't change anything.
And, to tie together the threads in my tweets this morning: do the midwives and doulas who villify me see the connection between terminology like 'host body' and 'vulva owner', 'birthing body' etc?
Probably not 🙄
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cont. "Similarly, when we describe the Equality Act’s protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’, we refer to ‘gender identity’ to explain who is covered by the law and how they are protected, as the EHRC does in their Code of Practice."
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