The Abolition Of Sanity, Part 2
Yesterday we posted an article noting that hardline trans-rights extremists, among whose number we must regretfully count the Scottish Government, were engaged in a determined and alarmingly successful attempt to abolish the scientific basis for reality.
We did not expect such a striking illustration of that assertion to arrive this soon.
Last year, author and tax expert Maya Forstater was sacked from her job at a charity thinktank over this tweet:
It had attracted the ire of a spectacularly unpleasant individual by the name of Gregor Murray, a man – visibly, obviously so – who was then an SNP councillor in Dundee but was later suspended for issuing a stream of misogynist abuse to a number of women.
Ironically, Murray then quit the SNP in a tantrum, accusing the party of “institutionalised transphobia” because it wouldn’t let him describe women as “hateful, vile scum” freely.
Murray was previously the convener of the “Out For Indy” LGBT pressure group which is behind attempts to oust gender-critical women from the SNP. He continues to draw a wage as an extremely male independent councillor, and to regularly abuse women and “transphobes” on Twitter from behind the safety of a locked account, when he’s not busy leading a local Scouts troop.
(He seems particularly keen to be involved with children.)
Forstater, who’s an assistant Cub Scout leader, had come into contact with Murray over a web article she’d written welcoming some new transgender guidelines for the organisation. He’d unleashed a torrent of abusive comments towards her, as is his usual manner, using a slur (“TERF”) that by his own admission he knew was abusive.
He then filed a formal complaint when she forgot to address him by his preferred pronoun of “they”.
(Forstater had already been fired from her unrelated job with the charity by this point over her views, but the exchanges with Murray, and the complaint by him, were used during the unfair-dismissal tribunal as evidence against her.)
Despite the fact that Murray has undergone no form of “transition” and remains a man by every accepted definition of that word, the judge in the tribunal ruled that it was not acceptable for Forstater (“the Claimant”) to regard him as such, making a series of extraordinary and deeply disturbing findings.
The use of “is said to be” there is quite something. But the judge’s ignorance of what “intersex conditions” are is if anything more unsettling. The term itself is inaccurate – intersex people are in fact men and women with disorders of sexual development, and every one is still either a man or a woman, just as a person doesn’t cease to be human if they’re (for example) born without legs, even though humans are a legged species.
DSDs do not create new sexes. There remain only two kinds of human gamete – sperm and eggs – and no individual ever born either produces both, or produces some third sort. So-called “intersex” people may produce neither type, as may people with other medical conditions, but they still belong biologically to one of the two sexes.
Paragraph 84, however, is where the judge rules on the abolition of sanity. He finds that it is an infringement of human rights not to recognise and affirm the plainly false claims made by someone with a mental disorder.
(Gregor Murray does NOT possess a Gender Recognition Certificate, but this did not prevent the judge from describing his demand not to be called a man as “legitimate”. The basis of this supposed legitimacy in the absence of a GRC was not explained.)
In other words, if Maya Forstater had encountered a person claiming to be Napoleon Bonaparte, then in the opinion of Mr Justice Tayler the law would have compelled her to acknowledge and identify that person as the deceased Emperor Of France.
A legal precedent for this exists in the case of Maria Maclachlan, a feminist who in 2018 was forced by a judge to refer to her male attacker as “she” in court.
(Her attacker, the male Tara Wolf, was found guilty and fined £150.)
Presumably the same doctrine would also have to be applied in a rape case and the victim be compelled, on pain of a contempt-of-court charge, to refer to her rapist as “she”, particularly given that the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate has this month declared rape to be a “gender-neutral” crime.
(Even though by law in both Scotland and the rest of the UK the offence explicitly requires the perpetrator to have penetrated the victim with “his penis”, our emphasis.)
Judge Tayler found, terrifyingly, that anyone who might object to such a sequence of events held views “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
No doubt there are some readers of this site who even now will persist in saying “shut up about this niche stuff, the SNP are the only route to independence!”
But securing an independent Scotland founded on such a basis would be to win only a pile of worthless ashes. If sane people don’t take a stand at this point, we will all be fighting for a country in which men can freely invade women’s spaces, rape them, force them to refer to their rapists as women in court, and then be sent to a women’s prison and be locked up with other women and rape them too.
This site wants no part of that Scotland. The abolition of sanity is absolutely not a price worth paying for independence, and the 2.7 million women in Scotland deserve better than to be thrown under a bus in pursuit of it.
But even then, it wouldn’t just be them. If statement of scientific fact is to be made a hate crime then nobody is safe.
“First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak out for me.”
(Coming soon, by way of example: going to jail if you’ve ever called someone a “nerd” or a “geek”. It sounds like a self-evident absurdity, but you’d have said the same thing a couple of years ago if anyone had ever suggested you could lose your job for saying men aren’t women, and yet here we are.)
You can stand aside in silence while thousands of years of human civilisation, science, language and freedom are dismantled in front of your eyes, readers. That’s your own choice to make. But we will not. The Rapist’s Charter cannot be allowed to pass. If you don’t want to hear about it, this is no longer the site for you.
.
OTHER RESOURCES
Claire Graham (intersex voice silenced by Twitter)
Miranda Yardley (dissenting transwoman silenced by Twitter)
Meghan Murphy (Canadian feminist silenced by Twitter, also here)
RadFem Rebecca (Feminist silenced by Twitter)
4th Wave Now (US parents group silenced by Twitter)
List of gender-critical feminists suspended by Twitter
Things that only happen to biological women
Statistics on the advantages held by biological males in women’s sports
The huge financial interests behind transgenderism
Two collections of violent threats from TRAs to women
Holyrood is debating the referendum bill as you publish this.
Well if you don’t want it in an independent Scotland you’re going to get it as part of the United Kingdom. So we need to fight on both fronts simultaneously.
Ashes?
C’mon – the meeeja will try and plant any rotten weed and make it grow to bestow unionism on us forever.
The SNP are ‘wide’ – the reality of parties will be narrower when we dont have ‘U’K media pushing knotweed at us.
But as for judiciary incompetence – its sure is a thing to behold.
Couldn’t agree more, do nothing and innocents suffer.
Reading through the draft consultation,
“A person of either gender may apply to the Registrar General for Scotland”
I thought gender was supposed to be a spectrum? Now there are only two, according to the SG.
As I have said before these people are abnormal so how can abnormal people make normal decisions ???
Why is this the only thing you are writing about? There are weirdos in every party.
Serious question, have you lost your hunger for Scottish independence?
Well done Rev – not the absolutist some people say you are. There is more to life than an independent Scotland!
It’s usually easy to spot transphobes, they nearly always talk about transwomen and completely forget that transmen exist too
Nearly all their arguments fall apart when you point out that they’re advocating transmen use women only spaces
Our laws as they stand are not fit for purpose
“Holyrood is debating the referendum bill as you publish this.”
So fucking what? What will that achieve? Did you even read the post?
I don’t think it’s worth giving up all the other benefits of independence, even if the current SNP leadership pushes this bill through, without enough protections. In the big picture, it’s a tiny percentage of people involved that are causing problems, most with mental disorders. If it ends up being abused, the law will be changed by public demand and future parliaments.
The important thing is the right to choose our own parliaments and policies on every issue. And all the other benefits of upgrading to a normal nation state in the world.
“Well if you don’t want it in an independent Scotland you’re going to get it as part of the United Kingdom.”
Actually the Tories have booted their plans into the very long grass. I would be extremely surprised if Johnson’s administration enacted the reforms.
If it can be sorted, then it can be sorted onboard Independence.
Sorting it first cannot be made a condition of Independence.
Proper perspective has perhaps been obscured here. This issue is very small compared to Independence, after which an election may be all that is required to correct the ‘imbalance’ of the present Scottish government.
Not going to be popular here, but sometimes a few choice people getting a good kicking… sorts the men from the boys.
No surprise freakyfuck is a boy scout leader.
And people are at a loss to understand why Johnson and the Tories were returned with an overwhelming majority. The Left tries to paint it as ‘populism’ as if that’s a bad thing but really, people are sick to the back teeth of being told, almost exclusively by the Left, what to say and what to think and the rise of populism is the direct result of that.
If a man is standing in front of you dressed as a woman, then it doesn’t matter what the fuck a judge, a lawyer, anyone says, you still know that’s a man.
Yet the Left will do it’s damndest, even throwing the might of the legal system at you, to make you think differently and that is wrong and out of order and of course, people will reject that and they’ll become resentful and eventually, will literally cut their nose off just to spite you which we saw recently with lifelong Labour supporters turning Tory.
What sickens me about the independence ‘movement’ is that so many, in fact the majority I’d say, of independence supporters imagine that an independent Scotland is going to be some kind of Socialist, Left wing utopia and they have this wee fantasy in their heads that everything’s going to be nicey-nicey but the reality is that it’s going to be very dangerous as witnessed by the Revs recent posts because he’s focusing on just one particular matter. Wait ’til you see what else these clowns on the Left will come up with in the future.
I don’t really care if anyone agrees with what I say or not and in this instance, I say fuck the Socialist, Left independent Scotland and go for a common sense independent Scotland. No Left or right, just fucking common sense.
In fact, the sooner independence comes, the better because it means we get shot of the SNP.
“This issue is very small compared to Independence”
Like fuck it is. The overt criminalisation of science and free speech is not a niche issue.
I have just read that J ., Swinson maybe put into the House of Lords there is a petition up to abolish the House of Lords which I have just signed
Thank you. Absolutely spot on!
@ defo
Thomas Hamilton was into the boy scouts too. Never trust these fuckers because what I’ve seen over the years is that the reason these people get involved in the Boy Scouts is because of the power it gives them. They have no power in their own lives, they have no power over adults, so they get involved with children and that gives them their power kick.
Psychos and ALWAYS worth a watch.
” The overt criminalisation of science and free speech is not a niche issue.”
Of course you’re right there, Stu, but it is an issue which is quite separate from Independence.
The Empress of the Seas doesn’t remain tied up just because one of the ‘transgender’ passengers feels ill or confused.
“I don’t think it’s worth giving up all the other benefits of independence, even if the current SNP leadership pushes this bill through,”
Good point, if the bill goes through, how is not being independent going to help repeal it.
Agree 100% with everything you have written here Stuart
This from the US.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/17/southern-poverty-law-center-hate-groups-scam-column/2022301001/
We are fast moving in a similar direction. Militant LGBT+ and like ‘gender’ politicking organizations are the enablers and fixers to which western governments appear to be in thrall.
Flight from reason and the corruption of science are marks of totalitarianism as is the anti-intellectual notion of ‘do not offend’. Being nice to one another is no excuse for filling ones head full of social conformist, subcultural, pseudo-science.
That is a ‘diversity’ too far.
Scottish independence must not be compromised or be sacrificed on this particularist altar.
Thank you for highlighting this – again, and showing fact based evidence – again.
I hope the lady has grounds (and resources) to appeal.
Mist
Hamilton actually was in my thoughts here mate.
You’re right about the power thing, but there’s the ‘access’ too.
Prison rules for nonces are good by me.
“In fact, the sooner independence comes, the better because it means we get shot of the SNP.”
A point I’ve stressed in the previous thread, as it stands the other Holyrood parties are unelectable. Only independence, sooner than later will force them to evolve. Though don’t get me wrong the SNP have implemented some good policies.
This is the bigger picture in Scotland.
Reminds me of the Billy Graham crusades of the 1950/1960s.
Anyone who dared to voice concerns or scepticism were deemed to be sinful and doomed.
Parliament, the Church and the Law all were roped into the madness.
Eventually though sanity prevailed. As it will again.
Knowing that may explain Jo Swinson’s seeming ‘ambivalence’ at the results announcement. I saw no sign of upset on her face throughout.
In para 83 the judge said
The claimant largely ignores intersex conditions and the FACT that biological opinion is increasingly moving away from a absolutist approach to there being GENES the presence or absence of which determine specific attributes
WOS says
The use of “is said to be” there is quite something. But the judge’s ignorance of what intersex conditions are is if anything more unsettling. Intersex people are men and women with disorders of sexual development, but they’re still men and women, just as a person doesn’t cease to be human if they are born without legs “
It appears to me that the judge is saying that genetic science is telling us that genes decide male and female attributes and genes ultimately determine who is male and female and also shows us that there are some people who can be construed as both or neither
The judge also says that Mrs Forstater refuses to accept that this genetic outcome is a possibility
Looks to me as if WOS refuses to accept that this “ both or neither “ genetic outcome is a possibility
And i hazard a guess that there are many commenters on this site that refuse to believe that this genetic outcome is possible.
As I’ve said before
I will trust the law to reach a sensible and correct conclusion because the law will take and consider all available evidence and with regards genetics there will be much much more evidence forthcoming over the next few years
WOS and others I would think do not have access to all available evidence
I’m no expert
I doubt if WOS is expert
I doubt if there are experts posting on this site
Therefore I still stick with the legal opinion which is following expert advice and opinion
A persons beliefs are built up over a lifetime
Clearly some ar unmoved by scientific discovery
This is utterly off topic but is symptomatic of the weak grasp on competence the Scottish Government currently has as far as timing goes. It just published the much delayed Werritty Report, https://raptorpersecutionscotland.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/werritty-review_nov2019.pdf which was commissioned a review of grouse moor management after satellite tracking of Golden Eagles (the national bird and utterly protected under the law) revealed that a large percentage were shot, snared or poisoned.
Why am I posting? Well it’s just another symbol/symptom of the country we don’t want and if we want to make it better then there are quite a few entrenched interests that need to be reformed. The timing smells a bit too but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since the past few weeks have been a bit busy.
For more information on this subject see:
https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/
https://markavery.info/blog/
Swinson rewarded for helping see off the socialist threat to the establishment.
Hopefully she’s allergic to Stoat fur.
The @MForstater ruling is mind-boggling! We have gone down the route of Canada’s C-16 Bill of compelled speech. Science is now dead, we no longer live in objective reality. I have no words for this judge’s ruling.
I hope the penny drops on those posters that think this is a side issue – this is thought control of an unscientific ideology.
Stu, I applaud you, Graham Linehan, Kathleen Stock, the deceased Magdalen Berns, Posie Parker, Seven Hex, Walt Heyer, Charlie Evans, Claire Graham, Dr Debbie Hayton, Fair Play for Women, Harry Miller Fair Cop, ForWomen.Scot, Transgender Trend and others for fighting this fight.
Please can those of you who are disparaging of Stu please research this issue. This affects all society. We are going down a slippery slope and this most recent ruling is just the start of it. This madness has to stop. SNP needs to dump this, it WILL affect our drive for independence – there is no doubt about it.
Sarah Smith on the BBC web still incorrectly stating that Sturgeon needs Westminster’s permission to hold a referendum.
‘Actually the Tories have booted their plans into the very long grass. I would be extremely surprised if Johnson’s administration enacted the reforms.’
Yay, let’s all vote Tory!
Can’t help but see something strange here. Most read and successful independence blog calls for Sturgeon to resign and then completely changes the subject matter of the site at the most crucial point for the yes movement since 2014.
‘This is no longer the site for you’ says Rev Stu and it seems, sadly, like he might be right.
Never truer words written.
Women’s rights to safe spaces being pushed back generations.
One thing, folks. By all means construct an argument against the views in this article if you like. But anyone suggesting that it means I’ve become an MI5 plant/Yoon/Tory/whatever will find themselves banned without further warning, because, y’know, I haven’t knocked my pan in for independence for the last eight years for people to start giving it that bollocks.
“Therefore I still stick with the legal opinion which is following expert advice and opinion”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Mist001 at 2:41
It is easy to assume the majority in the movement are mad left wingers, but that is simply not my experience. In fact, everyone I know who is in favour of Scotlands Independence are, by todays new standard, right of centre, including myself.
Believing in being socially responsible is not the same as being a mad socialist.
Gender deniers, for me, are worse than flat earthers, so if you wont let a flat-earther design the plane to take you on holiday, why would you let a bunch of nutjob gender deniers run the very Country you live in.
Say what you like about the Tories, but they will laugh at this one until it dies – I am not so sure the SNP have the courage for that.
Thanks Stu. The women in my family are certainly not ready for this. I can assure you of that.
Some people think it is not important dnough to interfere with Indy. I wkuld beg to differ. Women are organising over this issue. Female protection of family is a powsrful force go be reckoned with. To them ,nothing is more important.
I think men sometimes dont get that, and believe it can be somehow put on a back burner till later. Not in my household.
It is a sore that needs to be lanced,and soon.
Is Russian stooge still ok Stu, or is that a hammering too now?
😉
Well, OK, only if you simply must bring religion into it!
In the Maria Maclachlan case
The judge was in effect directing her to commit perjury.
Falling down a rabbit hole near you soon.
Human beings and pseudo-science.
https://www.livescience.com/2084-dna-kits-secrets-scientific-scam.html
Intelligence is no barrier to credulity either.
Of course you are right, Let’s not have an independent Scotland because of a battle with with trans issue which you rightly say throws women under a buss. And stay in the UK where the elderly, Disabled, nurses, firefighters, justice, law,decency,Northern Ireland,young people,Scotland,children, food standards,the NHS, Men, women, FOXES,Wales And so much more will be thrown under the buss. It’s just not worth it.
Great plan.
“justice, law,decency”
Wow, the irony.
The whole trans-activist/current SNP argument is predicated on A LIE – that a transwoman is a woman and all else that follows. It’s when A LIE is disengenuously promulgated as A TRUTH that a stand has to be taken. There is no real difference between the so-called Micro and the Macro human projects. A LIE is still A LIE and as such, has to be called out as being A LIE, otherwise what hope? What hope?
Kris @3:48
Talk about missing the point. Please do some research and realise that this could kill the drive for independence.
Compelled Speech is not Free Speech – quite the opposite in fact.
Why would people vote for a system of governance which has womens rights firmly under its boot?
….and fucking foxes….gimme a break.
@Rev. Stuart Campbell And the rest? What about that ? What is done is done. You said it yourself the president has been set.So as it stands right now this is the playing field an independent Scotland will start with.It sucks but it is what it is. An issue in which the majority of people disagree with. You really gonna tell me that after we become independent people are just going to happily keep voting for this through the SNP ?
A war only multiple fronts when one of those fronts is the British government is mental. We have to pick a time for our battles and if we choose to fight this one at this time we could all lose it all. Not just for ourselves but for future generations.
Kevan Lyons, 3:26
Aye right enough, how dare SC criticise the SNP. Maybe the yoons have a point, that the SNP is nothing but a cult as all must agree with everything they say and do. If not then they are anti-indy, etc.
Good grief this ain’t “1984”.
“James Morton, the manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance … said the total number of trans men, trans women and non-binary trans people living in Scotland made up fewer than 0.6% of the population”
Which means fewer than 324 of the approx. 5.4 million people living in Scotland.
The woke have even turned on JK Rowling over this.
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033
Herald reporting Natalie McGarry conviction quashed. She now faces a retrial.
I hope she gets a fair trial and justice is done.
No comments – please – about innocence or guilt as this could be subjudice.
Why is the House of Lords still called the House of Lords,
Asking for a friend.
From today’s Unionist Guardian.
On Thursday afternoon a separate bill setting out how referendums in Scotland will be run will reach its final stage at Holyrood. But this framework bill does not set the date or question on the ballot, which have to be specified in further primary legislation.
The Electoral Commission confirmed on Monday that the bill had accepted its recommendation of a minimum 10-week campaign period. Added to the required 26-week lead-in period, that would mean a referendum would need nine months from the passing of legislation in Holyrood to polling day, making the chance of holding one in 2020 increasingly unlikely.
Are the 48 like the 56 destined to be initially bright but soon to fizzle out like a cheap bulb?
Demographically Scotland is ageing. Scotland does not have time on its side. A nation of pensioners is unlikely to be ‘revolutionary’. Getting bogged down in lengthy legal ping pong games will not engage the young either.
Thank you. I know some folk will shout “transphobe” etc but we know the truth & that has to be stood up for. I’m glad you haven’t backed down in this because we need everyone to stand up for kids who are not conforming to stereotypes but absolutely not in need of irreversible medical treatment. The day they can “affirm” anorexia is the day they can affirm trans kids.
Adults can do wtf they like but compelled speech was, last time I checked, not democratic.
Calculator bad! Apologies.
0.6% of 5.400,000 population is 35,000 approx.,more if it’s 0.6% of the adult population, but James Morton referred only to ‘the population’.
Self-id will be used against the SNP in exactly the same way Jo Swinson was repeatedly humiliated over it during the general election campaign, because the Lib Dems were thick enough to explicitly commit to it in their manifesto. Only the outcome will be worse, because the SNP are in power and will be actually implementing it.
The Scottish Tories won’t touch it with a bargepole now. Labour are eerily silent on the matter. This is the wedge issue of their dreams, they just need to wait for the fallout to begin. Won’t be long now.
Desperate to see the back of this nonsense but thinking further
on the absurdity of it all:
A Man with penis is accused of raping a woman.
The Police want to take a sperm or DNA sample to prove guilt or innocence.
Can the police ask this if he says he is a woman and doesn’t have sperm? Is it against His/Her Human rights to say he isn’t a woman when he says he is?
Lets go to the Olympics. An American man is rated as the 10th fasted 100 meters runner in the world.
Can he then say he is a woman because he has a dress and some make-up on, win the Woman’s 100 meters and makes a fortune as an Olympic Gold Winner.
With all that cash and fame, he announces he was wrong he is a man. Bring on the girls.
Who dares to tell him he isn’t a woman?
Tennis do they demand Singles tournaments for men and women, Doubles for 2 men and 2 women, same for Juniors and Wheelchair Users, obviously they will need to include trophies for Men who say they are women, and Women who say they are men.
I working on how that last group can do mixed doubles:
She who was a he and he who was a she against a 2 Binary Humans who don’t want to be labeled?
These people who must be 1 in 50,000 seem to be getting more air time than the Scottish Government in the press.
The women who represent more than 25,000 out of 50,000 must come first.
Be who you want to be but don’t expect the world to be redesigned just for you.
So I’ve provided my input to the Consultation as I don’t agree with the proposals (not that it’ll make much difference I’m sure), but what other means do we have to raise objections and get our voices heard?
I agree with many comments on here that independence should be the main focus and this subject isn’t on a lot of people’s radar atm – indeed it was only reading this site that brought it to my attention and it has taken a bit of reading up on the matter to get a better understanding of the issues. I am female and consider myself to be fairly politically aware, so I suspect there may be a lot of other people in the same boat as me.
I agree the proposals are a concern and that the Scottish Government need to rethink these, however it wouldn’t stop me from wanting our independence if they didn’t and would hope that a different approach would be called for and acted on in an independent Scotland.
I’m struggling to follow this:
This was an English employment tribunal. What’s it got to do with the SNP or Scotland?
What’s Gregor Murray got to do with the case? He’s no mentioned in the case.
The ‘Rapists Charter’
man, that’s got to catch on….
Question… was that an Employment Tribunal where Maya lost her case?
I was taken to an employment tribunal once upon a time, and that was an utter fiasco which had as much interest in the truth as Transgender Self ID has in science.
It left me angry and bitter for a very long time, because the appeal was even less rigorous and detached from reality, and I have never employed a single person since nor trained another apprentice… not because they’re not needed, but explicitly because Employment Tribunals are utter bollocks from start to finish and wholly disinterested in the truth, honesty, or an individual’s good character and integrity. They are simply too much of a liability to expose yourself to as an employer. Never again. Apprentices no more. Fuckers.
The worst violence against civilians occurred on Saturday 8th April when the authorities tried to move a group of prisoners from Paisley to Greenock.
As the soldiers left the town a crowd pelted them with stones.
The army opened fire, killing eight people, including an eight-year-old child, and injuring 10 others.
https://caltonjock.com/2018/05/10/1820-scottish-rising-scots-betrayed-by-westminster-unionist-spies-many-scots-murdered-by-english-soldiers-and-22-scots-martyrs-sentenced-to-death-for-high-treason-and-sedition-are-there-lessons/
@ Breeks
I had exactly the same experience with an industrial tribunal as you and like you never employed another apprentice again
Rev… You can’t leave us to fight this alone ?
We’re trying to push back against it and you’re one of the few journalists willing to stick your head above the parapet.
Independence or not we need to try, and we (Women’s Group’s) are organising, but we’d still vote for Indy and may finish up fighting it in an Independent Scotland.
It snuck through on the down low elsewhere,but we believe we have caught it and,that we can get the electorate on our side.
To do so we’re going to need as many voices as possible and the loss of yours would be a huge blow!
Colin Alexander says:
19 December, 2019 at 4:28 pm
I’m struggling to follow this:
This was an English employment tribunal. What’s it got to do with the SNP or Scotland?
What’s Gregor Murray got to do with the case? He’s no mentioned in the case.
———————————————————————
The way I understand it Murray only reported the tweet that got Maya sacked, I might be wring but that’s how I understand it
Haven’t commented for a few years but this, THIS drove me out.
I really think we need to use these independence marches in Edinburgh and finish them at Holyrood with the explicit effect of making our Government aware that we are not taking this bullshit any longer. Fuck Independence marches (only Edinburgh) and replace with a womans rights march as many times as can be. Then use this to distribute information booklets or something(I would happily put money into a crowdfunder, as would many others Rev, if your up for it, that is, no pressure?). People in Scotland should be very afraid and very angry with what’s coming (and I’m not talking about Brexit this time).
I honestly feel compelled to inform my area of this absolute nonsense, as should everyone who supports Independence as well on this site and others (Indy campaigning will be put on fucking hold for a year because of these cunts if that’s what it takes).
The Scottish Government need to get it into their thick heads that you wil not be allowed mess with peoples sex-based rights, ever, without a damn good fight, even if it damages our movement in the short term, this needs sorted now while there’s still time.
Remember the Quote from Edmund Burke. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ? Edmund Burke “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
“Demographically Scotland is ageing. Scotland does not have time on its side. A nation of pensioners is unlikely to be ‘revolutionary’. Getting bogged down in lengthy legal ping pong games will not engage the young either.”
No it’s not.
Demographically, Scotland is getting younger as the post-war ‘baby boom’ bulge passes along the population ‘snake’ to its natural end.
Based on the official figs below, approx 82,000 will have died in 2019, with 73,500 approx, born.
“There were 12,253 births and 13,652 deaths registered in Scotland between 1 April and 30 June 2019, according to provisional figures released today by National Records of Scotland. Compared to the quarter two average for the previous five years, births have fallen by 9.3 per cent and deaths have risen by 0.9 per cent.11 Sep 2019”
https://www.gov.scot › news › birth-…
Birth and death rates – gov.scot – The Scottish Government
@manandboy
May I suggest you read this.
https://spice-spotlight.scot/2019/05/01/scotlands-population-growing-more-slowly-and-ageing/
Put simply, the Scots needs to start reproducing. The SG, a pro abortion, ‘right to choose’ lot, seems to think you can make up the shortfall just by importing population from other countries.
The ‘imports’ will probably be required to be skilled, thus depriving their countries of origin of their expertise paid for by the citizens of those countries.
A sort of neo-imperialism.
Commented at the tail-end of the previous post, perhaps more appropriate here.
Everyday, everyone of us, wakes up to an unsettling, if not disturbing, reality, viz., that everything we might watch on TV, or hear on the radio, or read in the Press, or online, particularly on the subject of current affairs, might very well be untrustworthy.
Even more so in Scotland which effectively gets almost all of its News & Current Affairs via England, our Imperial Ruler.
In recent years, the ‘Truth’ has become like an endangered species, with the Westminster Government of Boris Johnson seemingly determined to exterminate it altogether. While at the same time, every variety of lying is being encouraged to flourish and spread everywhere and become established.
This attempt to completely extinguish the truth, underpins every Westminster Government decision and approach to forming policy.
This is the crisis of our times.
The basis for all sound and reliable decision-making, is being systematically removed.
Every day we wake up, to more lies, and to a crisis getting worse.
Choose Independence for Scotland, to make it a normal healthy country – then vote SNP to get it, warts and all.
Ps. Stu isn’t perfect, that’s a given. And he makes the odd mistake. He’s human. And, he does his job better than anyone else I know of, by a distance. Scotland stands in his debt.
Even the best goalscorers miss more than they score. But no one gives a thought to the chances missed.
Soon, we will have another chance at the goal of Independence. Please, let’s do only what we have to do to achieve our goal. Anything else can join the queue of things needing done – after Independence.
Please choose Independence as your priority as a citizen of Scotland – and vote SNP to get it.
Frank , G ..you said
The whole trans-activist/current SNP argument is predicated on A LIE – that a transwoman is a woman
Frank I don’t think the legislation is being presented as you describe I think it’s a case of
transwomen being treated as a woman rather than actually being a woman
Being treated as a women is a different proposition to being a woman
Personally I do not have a problem treating a man as a woman if that is what they want to be nor do I have a problem treating a woman as a man if that is what they want to be
Colin Alexander @ 4.28
It takes very few reports of people losing their jobs (and that’s UK wide) before the notion that this is how thing MUST be enter the public discourse.
It’s what will knock down opposition and ease the establishment of this rhetoric.
People may not really believe it but they can’t risk their job over it…. and then,very many will dare not express to their children what they really think.
Which will leave the door wide open to teach the “offical stance” to them as Children are the place where all ideology must be rooted in. ( think how religion targets them )
…. This is Social Engineering to embed forced speech.
The Government is trying to dictate what the population MUST utter…….
The easiest way to do that is to remove your income,because they can’t jail us all and no one in their right mind would “choose” to enter the benefit system.
A system that can already sanction people for unapproved behaviours…..
A lot of people up to and including the Media cannot, or will not,distinguish between the UK and Scotland over many things and I believe that employment law is reserved!
Kris 3.58pm….how do you know the majority of people disagree with it ?
You don’t do you ?
You are guessing there
You might be right but I don’t think you are
I think most people won’t mind if it s controlled and done sensibly
(Posted this comment on previous post Enemies Within by accident. Hope to avoid hammers.)
Some commenters appear to express the old-fashioned attitude that if women would just shut up and be nice then we could all forget about this issue.
Stuart Campbell has got to the nub of the matter. Far more profound even than the transgender issue is the way activists within the SNP as well as other parties have behaved. I have always disliked bullying of any kind, whether expressed as a means of marginalizing people or silencing different opinions. When I see it being employed, I will immediately question it and find those who use it suspect.
Some people seem willing to overlook the bullying, barracking and no-platforming of women as being unimportant, or less important than gaining independence.
I have lost respect for some of those at the top in the SNP who have turned a blind eye to the targetting of women who question. I cannot overlook the willingness of these activists to shut down proper discussion. No good can come to a political movement from a rush to legislation with such a complex issue, as well as no good can come to a party (not just the SNP) where there are activists able to bully and insult with impunity.
Can no one who defends or wishes to ignore this behaviour not see the danger allowing such a means to an end? This kind of suppressing of free speech never leads to a good outcome. The liberal elite in the Labour party eventually demonized and neglected their working class voters in England and we can see where that leads and they learned nothing from it – witness the demands now for the return of New Labour and praise of Blair, for God’s sake.
Blair and Alistair Campbell were the wizards of spin. Ordinary voters were despised and marginalized because the entryists felt no need to engage. They lost many voters ages ago in Scotland because those voters became disillusioned by the elite and their methods.
Are you not concerned by women being unable to have meetings on university campuses to discuss this issue and being subjected to abuse and threats? Those who within the SNP indulge in this behaviour don’t disturb you? Well they do me.
I am hoping that there are thoughtful minds still at the top who might be concerned and not be hurried into instigating what is from the wilder shores of international practice, such as Canada and USA. This needs wise consideration because of the ramifications. Protecting a minority is a good thing but it needs careful examination of every possible outcome. Reiteration of slogans really doesn’t do it for me.
We might be dealing with the ramifications of this for years to come.
All the Yes I know or who I have discussed this with are seriously considering not voting SNP in Holyrood or local elections again due to this. Then there are there male allies like me who are considering exactly the same thing.
I am a PhD scientist, you will find my name published in Nature. My degrees are in Physiology and I’m a Developmental Biologist who understands sex determination in development. I know how SRY works. I knew Robin Lovell-Badge who discovered it and went to talks he gave.
I understand how different precursor structures in embryos are transformed one way for males and another way for females. I understand most of what happens in sex reassignment surgery and why it works better for male to female than female to male.
I also know that a number of those with intersex conditions are probably or certainly chimeras. They have male and female cells in their bodies, they are the result of twins fusing early in development. We know this happens and we have the tools to prove it. These are two people in one body and NOT what or how TRA’s try and coopt them as. I am angry about that.
That a supposedly mature and sensible government is promulgating this appalls me in a very deep level.
Please, please Rev start a Wings party for 2021 so we will not be disenfranchised or forced to spoil our ballots as you did in the GE. I think I will simply write ‘None of the Above as none are sane’ on mine.
Abulhaq, the figures in the data you linked to, clearly show that Scotland’s population is diminishing, which I did not dispute, but it is NOT ageing, as you claimed earlier, since births are greater than deaths. It would have to be the reverse to create an ageing population.
I detest those who ignore science either intentionally or through wilful ignorance (Those who don’t want or care to know).
The outcome of this case is frankly evidence defying. I can’t trust the courts or government to sort it out because all too often the “Woke Brigade” are vocal and present themselves as vital numbers to put whatever is needed over the top. The idea that we can’t win independence without them as they are the “reasonable centrists” who add 5% to the cause is obviously close to if not actual emotional blackmail.
That being said the bigger issue with all this is that it’s been swept under the carpet. Too many don’t know what is happening – self ID is almost secret to the views of the main electorate and the impact on Women’s spaces, Women’s Sports is not misunderstood but just not on the radar of many. Once this issue comes to light I suspect it will wither as a fad (particularly when the actual numbers of those who wish to self id but not follow through is uncovered – maybe hundreds at most?) but it might take a while and in the meantime lives will be impacted.
Even if those who support Self ID and all that comes with it hold power for a while they won’t stand for long – but that does depend on the information and story getting out into the wider world. Ironically we find ourselves in a world where JK Rowling is on the side of science.
All that being said to suggest that Independence is less important than Self ID is only an opinion and one I steadfastly disagree with.
If two tracks of differing arguments are needs one to make sure Science is Paramount/Fact and the other that Independence is necessary and urgently sought then so be it.
If Stu wants to step away from this all that is his choice. But I argue that independence is more important both now and in the short term. I can take steps in my day to day life to protect my daughters and wife from dangers that those who seek to exploit self id for their own terrible actions. I can not take steps to save the NHS, EU Membership etc without pushing for and achieving Independence.
For me Independence is for the time being worth the cost in a short term and long term basis. Even if I have to join a pro science resistance in the meantime to up hold scientific fact over “feelings and opinions”.
I hope a twin track approach is possible because we will need all the weapons at our disposal including the Wee Blue Book 2 and the Rev’s critical deconstruction of media lies to win independence.
There is one extra thing I should point in all of this – in “V” when the lizards came along they did their best to hide the fact they were lizards. They also sowed the seeds of disinformation to dumb down the population by targeting Scientists and claiming they were evil and part of a conspiracy against the visitors. I can’t help but see the parallels on this case. Ironically many of the top pro vaccination people I know are also woke and seems to think Sex is a spectrum – and conflate Sex and Gender all the time. I have no issue with various Genders, i have no issue with those who are Trans and who have take the well established steps necessary to transition (often involving surgery) but I do draw the line when biological fact is denied.
@Manandboy
This from Wiki.Scotland’s demographics.
POPULATION PROJECTIONS.
In its 2011 review the GROS predicted that Scotland’s population would rise by 10% to 5.76 million by 2035 and to 6.2m by 2085. Until 2028 both net inward migration and the birth rate exceeding the death rate would contribute to this growth, however beyond this date population increase would be due only to a positive net migration as the aging population would result in more deaths than births. This later trend would be dramatic with the number of children under 16 projected to rise by only 3% while the number of people over 65 is projected to increase by 63% (from 0.88m to 1.43m).
Compared to the country i was born in Scots appear to have ‘given up the ghost’
Scotia geriatrica? . This is a political issue Scottish parties find too sensitive to handle.
Muscle guy…..I know thousands of SNP voters who have all said that no matter what the outcome of the gender recognition review which ends in March 2020
They intend to vote SNP for Scottish independence
Terry Callahan @ 6.42
I do too…. While swearing never vote for them again.
JGedd….are you serious ? A rush to legislation ?
The review of the 2004 gender reecognition act started 2016/17
It is still being reviewed
The review will complete march 2020 at which point further discussion will take place and a recommendation and final decision will follow
Hardly a rush to legislation is it
Have you read This
https://www.gov.scot/publications/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill-consultation-scottish-government/pages/2/
Liz g…the thousands you spoke to just changed their mind …..a minute ago
Terry Callahan @ 6.50
Ha Ha… No silly….
They are still on board for Indy and know this means the SNP.
But for how long is indeed on a shoogly peg..
They won’t support them after the Yes vote though, unless they drop this nonsense.
A link questioning the premisses underpinning this ‘dysphoria’.
https://www.acpeds.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/9.14.17-Gender-Ideology-Harms-Children_updated-MC.pdf
It took some time for psychiatry to be regarded as anything more than shamanistic.
Their are two sexes, male and female. It is that simple. This is FACT, whereas what the trans loonies keep asserting is uneducated opinion. Their is NOT a spectrum of sexes, just two, and women do not, I can say with considerable certainty, have penises. Anybody asserting that women DO have penises, should be sectioned.
Rev STU is correct, this is dangerous stuff, it is a move away from established scientific fact towards utter nonsense, to establish what is laughingly termed ‘rights’.
The judgement is bizarre to say the least.
I will never pander to such ‘preferred pronouns’ sh*te. It is stupidity on stilts. It is truly madness.
People really, really need to get educated about the implications of this kind of stuff. It is NOT a trivial matter, yet to those uninterested, it seems to be, and that is part of the problem. People don’t easily get just why this is dangerous stuff.
Just a few years ago, folk would have laughed out loud at anybody saying women have penises, but now we have this madness.
Is this how humanity ends??
Breeks ..yes it was an employment tribunal
An employment tribunal consists of a qualified solicitor ( at least 7yrs) and two lay persons
One from the industry side perhaps a businessman and one from the employee side perhaps a union rep.
The two lay persons can outvote the solicitor but it is rare
I used to present appeals for DHSS at these tribunals
These tribunals used to refer to social security legislation etc as being “ ENABLING “ legislation
in other words legislation there to help people
So they would err on the claimants side and often reverse refusals of benefit etc
Nowadays I think that has changed and gone the other way
It s the solicitors job to advise the two laypersons of the law and help them interpret the law relating to the appeal before them
Robert Louis…what about this ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
Liz g…so nice to see a laugh
Not saying the subject isn’t serious it is
The Scottish govt review closes March 2020 then there will be thought and discussion and decision making etc
That gives us some time
I just want Indy …..before I die x
Boris Johnson playing Candy Crush on his phone while Ian Blackford was addressing him in the Commons.
We really are fucked.
Like I say their are two sexes. Anybody citing rare intersex conditions, as a means to justify their ‘gender’ hokum are peddling unscientific p*sh. THAT is the problem. Too many keep falling for this ‘scientificy -sounding’ rubbish. Just like people peddling ‘scientificy – sounding’ rubbish about vaccines. Nonsense in both cases.
What is worrying, is that people peddling such rubbish, DO KNOW it is untrue. Their aim is to deceive, so they can have a world which fits their own personal feelings and concepts.
It is madness on stilts.
Looks like Jason Michael has had his twitter account locked for “hateful conduct”
https://twitter.com/RevStu
If you still have your ‘dangly bits’….you are a man.
If you have had them removed because you are sure you should have been born a woman….I will consider you a woman (if for no other reason than you have had the courage to do so).
Everyone else in between can fuck off.
it’s not all bad, folks
jakey trolling, erstwhile female typist of well punctuated childrens twaddle … is being done for transphobia
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033
– will the REV be reaching out to the ?barnton billionairess??
OT: https://themammothwhale.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/who-is-marky-booth/
The sooner you set up a list party the better.
It’s utterly depressing to see too many contributors proving the key point made by the author of this blog post who are totally oblivious of having done so.
The fact that it has been spelled out in Janet and John terms not once, not twice, not three times but numerous times and is still not getting through is like talking to Brexit ultras in leave voting areas of England.
Campbell’s key point is that everything around us only exists and is created on the basis of objective evidence.
The idea that it is possible to separate out this issue from independence is a classic example of the willful and deliberate denial of objective reality that Campbell is highlighting.
It’s not rocket science. Anyone serious about wanting to win an independence referendum cannot stick their head in the sand by ignoring the following facts:
– In any population set the actual distribution of men and women hovers around the 50/50 mark.
– It is a fact that women are discriminated against in terms of job opportunities and pay. This is documented. This is largely because of a biological fact known as childbirth. Women have had to fight for generations from being the property of men. From not being allowed to be inherit. For the right to vote. For equal pay and a thousand and one other things including safety from abuse towards themselves and children in their care.
– The population of Scotland (2018 figures here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2019/scotlands-population-2018
is 5.44 million people.
– The available spreadsheets show a distribution of approximately 2.18 million males and 2.34 million females aged 16 and over. ALL likely to be eligible to vote in an independence referendum.
– The membership of the SNP (December 2018: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05125
stands at approximately 125,500 members.
– The SNP secured 45% of the vote across Scotland last week. Or, put another way 55% of all those who voted did not vote SNP.
– It is therefore a matter of simple rational logic based on the objective evidence that to win an independence referendum WILL require going beyond the SNP core membership and beyond the SNP vote.
– To win that vote WILL require the independence movement to obtain the votes of the majority female demographic.
– ANYTHING WHICH PUTS AT RISK THAT VITAL VOTE IS A THREAT TO INDEPENDENCE. PERIOD!
– Right now the biggest potential substantive threat to winning that female vote necessary to achieve a Yes vote is this issue.
– The attitude on the doorstep WILL be along the lines of ‘If they do this to their own members and supporters (attack and deplatform etc) what bloody chance have we got!’
– It is the SNP, NOT the author of this blog, who is pushing this issue at this time whilst it is those in the independence movement who are highlighting this threat to independence who are being targeted and deplatformed on social media to prevent widespread informed comment and contributions to this consultation.
The objective evidence is that it is those who are brushing this under the carpet and falsely accusing the author of this blog of being a threat to independence who are in reality the biggest threat to winning an independence vote and gaining independence.
If those doing this, and you know who you are, don’t understand this objective, evidence based reality it is reasonable to conclude that they do not want to.
That, of course is their right as free individuals. However, I for one would be obliged if such people would stop insulting everyone’s intelligence (including their own) by maintaining the claim they are serious about Scottish Independence when they are in fact adopting and pursuing a position which represents a clear and present threat to that outcome.
What seems to be happening here is that the Cuckoo’s of Karl Rove’s ‘creating our own reality’ and the Overton Window have come home to roost and are playing havoc with the perceptual tools and narratives necessary to maintain any standard of civilised coherence.
This is Kleins ‘Shock Doctrine’ operating on an epic scale. Undermining the fundamental core basic scientific values, realities and perceptions within which we exist under the guise of ‘Politics.’ Those who insist on living in Rove’s ‘Reality Based Community’ – whether on the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ – and who point out the nakedness of the emporer from objective reality are now ‘Mavericks.’ (Like Campbell and others over this matter; Peter Hitchens of the Douma incident in Syria and so on)
And this is now the new ‘Normal.’
A normal in which right down to the individual level everyone is being encouraged, coerced, pushed into creating their own subjective, infantalised, individualised ‘reality’. Self labelling and self identifying which has no relationship to objective, provable, and evidence based reality.
A normal which has real life repercussions:
A normal cutting everyone off from each other in atomised ghettos scrapping like rats in a sack for ever decreasing scraps.
The divide here is quite simple:
Are you in the reality based community or not?
If not, as Campbell implied earlier: time to bugger off.
Insisting that people override the evidence of their own senses and say that a man is a woman, even when they can clearly see that he is a man, is grooming.
Young girls in the Guides or Brownies, or children on school trips, can be supervised by a transwoman. Telling young girls to refer to him as her and accept that he sleeps in the same dormitory, is grooming.
For data protection reasons, the parents must not be told.
This already happens BTW because the Girl Guide and Scout Associations have been to the training.
The Youth Hostel Association has issued guidance that a transwoman must be allowed to sleep in the women’s dormitory. If a woman is unhappy about a male bodied person sleeping in the dormitory (perhaps a survivor of rape or domestic abuse) she must write to the YHA a fortnight in advance and request alternative accomodation. The YHA may or may not be able to provide that.
Hospital wards in England must allow transwomen to use the women’s ward if they so choose. There is therefore no longer a women’s ward.
This is already happening.
Here, Lisa Cameron spells out what grooming is, something social workers are familiar with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jMGVC4SKf4
Insisting that people override the evidence of their own senses and say that a man is a woman, even when they can clearly see that he is a man, is grooming.
Young girls in the Guides or Brownies, or children on school trips, can be supervised by a transwoman. Telling young girls to refer to him as her and accept that he sleeps in the same dormitory, is grooming.
For data protection reasons, the parents must not be told.
This already happens BTW because the Girl Guide and Scout Associations have been to the training.
The Youth Hostel Association has issued guidance that a transwoman must be allowed to sleep in the women’s dormitory. If a woman is unhappy about a male bodied person sleeping in the dormitory (perhaps a survivor of r*pe or domestic abuse) she must write to the YHA a fortnight in advance and request alternative accomodation. The YHA may or may not be able to provide that.
Hospital wards in England must allow transwomen to use the women’s ward if they so choose. There is therefore no longer a women’s ward.
This is already happening.
Here, Lisa Cameron spells out what grooming is, something social workers are familiar with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jMGVC4SKf4
I’m slightly conflicted about the biological aspect. It seems like mental issues can explain many cases, but for others it’s not so clear. I’ve only known one person with gender issues, and it was clearly psychological. One of her early memories was hearing her parents say they hoped for a boy.. For others, it’s probably easier than admitting they are gay. Or it’s drama for attention-seekers.
But I do think there is some sympathy for a *possible* biological explanation in more ‘genuine’ cases – based on something that appears a bit rude to mention: A large percentage of trans-people already *LOOK* a lot like the opposite sex.. Especially female to male. Many just look a bit like guys already.
It’s a blunt reason to consider at least a POSSIBILITY of some genetic explanation. If they can look like the opposite sex on the outside, something similar might be happening, or causing that on the inside? Giving a sexual identity based on biology, not just a gender identity based on stereotypes. An anorexic might genuinely think they are fat, but they look skinny. A trans person might genuinely feel like the opposite sex, and actually look like it in some way.
So even if they match their sex in other ways, is there a compassionate argument for a more variable line between male and female? There’s a lot of sympathy for those who feel so out of place, it’s a high suicide risk. It’s easy to empathise how fucked-up they must feel inside. Like forcing someone straight to live as gay. That sympathy is jeopardised by some extremely unlikable and dangerous characters, but a lot remains, and it’s why it’s possible to be seen as hateful – even if correct.
It still seems more beneficial and fairer overall to build support for ‘Trans’ as a separate sex category and identity in it’s own right. Something to be proud of, that isn’t just viewed as a personality disorder. Of course that would be easier if a clear genetic factor could be easily identified, more than just a hunch.
I have no strong opinion on trans rights, I think you’ve made a good case for your opinion several times and I respect it.
Now I ask you to please drop the issue. This has no bearing on independence and is fragmenting your support.
Publish this stuff on another site, people come here to follow the independence movement, not to follow individual policies at length, whatever they may be.
This site and your book I think is more responsible for the current support for independence than any other source. Please don’t blunt the edge by focussing so much on trans issues
‘Actually the Tories have booted their plans into the very long grass. I would be extremely surprised if Johnson’s administration enacted the reforms.!
Sounds very much like you have found your political home then Stuart.
From yellow tory to blue tory never was that much of a stretch.
And you won’t even have to leave England to live in your gender rigid nirvana.
Maybe Wings Over England soon.
Sex is not debatable as there only two Male or Female to suggest otherwise goes against science and common sense. Gender is a mind construct and goes down 1984 “how many fingers can you see Winston.”
@ Dave Hansell 7.36 – you hit the nail squarely on the head. Well said.
@ dakk 7.58 – what a shameful comment. You have clearly missed the point.
Onwards,
You make a reasonable and compassionate point, and a constructive suggestion.
According to TRA doctrine that makes you a hateful bigot and you are personally responsible for the deaths of transgender people etc. etc. You are denying the untruth that transwomen are women.
Niemoller had it right; if you can’t speak up against vile nonsense you’re in deep guano. There’s an “If…” response that goes “…and if my auntie had testicles she’d be my uncle” – having to refer to either as if they possessed the attributes of the other is the very definition of insanity. It’s also deeply disturbing that the campaign to make us do so is at such a threatening, vituperative level. Gender dysphoria, or the assumption of such, is no excuse for vitriol.
I have came off twitter because of this pish and have along with my wife decided not to rejoin the SNP.
This stuff is shooting themselves in the foot because of a few crackpots calling the shots.
There are a lot like us as well who are having second thoughts over this gender crap
@ Capella at 8.04
Seconded.
Onwards @ 7.39
A separate category and separate facilities have already been absolutely ruled out by the Trans Rights Activists.
This would apparently “other” them.
I swear to Lucifer,I’m seriously thinking if this goes through, getting some friend’s together,identifying as Males and Demanding the Right to Join the Freemasons.
I reckon we’ll soon see how long Judges and Politicians support it then!!!
“Muscle guy…..I know thousands of SNP voters who have all said that no matter what the outcome of the gender recognition review which ends in March 2020”
“They intend to vote SNP for Scottish independence”
I agree with that, independence is the goal, a goal that we’ve been chasing for years. Now is not the time to falter.
Why are the media and the church and women’s groups not all over this insanity.
I have great sympathy with those who are trapped in the wrong body and they need to be helped medically and psychologically, but this has become unsettling and quite sinister.
Capella @ 8.04 & Crazy Cat @ 8.19
Third one’s the charm 🙂
@ Cappella
If Stuart feels so strongly about the gender issue and they are the only party whose policy on gender coincides with his then it is perfectly reasonable to assume he has found a new political home.
Fuck all shameful about any of it.
Bill Hume @ 7:42
‘If you still have your ‘dangly bits’….you are a man.
If you have had them removed because you are sure you should have been born a woman….I will consider you a woman’
So, Bill, if I may. This ‘woman’ of yours decides to take up womans boxing and commences to beat the shit out of real women, legally, in the ring – maybe throw in a bit of brain damage for ‘her’ female opponent and while we’re at it give ‘her’ the (real) womans olympic gold medal – are you ok with that?
c’mon folks, think…..think…..this is nothing short of madness and it needs to STOP!
One thing I don’t understand.
These “woke” young women, “trans allies”, etc. Are they so desperate for male approval? Already silenced.
So young women don’t dare to raise their voices because they’d be accused of whatereverphobia. So they’re effectively silenced.
The lobbyists are also trying to silence older women, but the bloody hags won’t stay quiet, let men trample all over their hard-won sex-based rights. Bloody witches raising their voices, spoiling it all for the boys. Bloody women. How DARE they?!!?
Womens’ rights activists are often dismissed as ugly, not even wearing make-up etc. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many men only see “pretty” women; better people look past the make-up or whatever, and see the person.
Still, a male-defined existence, if you go along with it.
I’ve had men hitting on me, some chat, flirt, and the man totally bewildered when I say “Find a doll, darling. You’ll be the more happier for it. Bye bye.”
I never “gender-conformed”, I played with Lego and didn’t like pink or dresses, so I must’ve be trans, according to this new mad ideology.
Thank the gods, when I was growing up this idea that tomboys are actually boys in the wrong body wasn’t all persave.
I was a tomboy and gradually grew up to be a woman. Never a steretypical woman. Battling against the stereotypes.
Hey, I might be a mere woman but I’m really good at reading a map and using a compass. Better than most of my male friends, who have GPS. The boys have a really tough time admitting I am the best “navigator”. A mere woman doing “male” things better than them males.
This recent trans ideology surge is so regressive, building their case on regressive sex/gender stereotypes. That every girl who doesn’t like the onslaught of pink must be a boy.
Is that all the womanhood is redeced to? Pink?
Don’t mention actual material reality, the physical, physiologial reality of being a woman, such as mentrual cramps… Oh, sorry, we’re horrible exclusionary nazis if we don’t swallow the “fact” that transwomen have periods, too. Really, how can they? They don’t have a uterus, the lining of which gets washed out every month unless you’re pregnant.
But it’s exclusionary and hurtful, maybe even hate speech, to point out this biological fact.
Really?
Should we all bend over backwards, redefine our language, and unsee the evidence of our own observation, just to pander to the delusion of a tiny, tiny minority of men. And it is mostly men. “Shut up, women. We’re doing ‘women’ better than you, see my lipstick and hair!”
So there! Men tell us what a real woman is. Good lipstick and a good hairdo. Wearing “womanface”.
Women protesting that this is cultural approriation are met with “TERF” and “bigot”. Oh, and lesbians should learn to suck ladydicks.
All this is so sickeningly misogynistic and even homophobic, and yet major political parties want to address the issue. The Tories and their equivalents in other countries steer clear, all centre-left parties have been bought up, drink this unscientific kool-aid.
Not to be too tinfoily, but the trans agenda is the perfect issue to divide the “left”, or Scottish indipendence supporters. Integrity Initiative, 77th brigade and MI6 aren’t daft.
McDuff @ 8.23
Well…. In other Countries it’s been brought in very quietly
In Ireland the changes were part of the Same Sex Marriage legislation and the same sex marriage issue got all the attention.
It almost got through last summer in Holyrood everything was in place to just do it.
It was a couple of SNP politicians questioning it and the reaction they got for doing so that brought it more attention and got it postponed.
Most who were objecting don’t want to damage Independence and now they haven’t and they can’t.
The election is over,Brexit is clear, the SNP have their new mandate, the Greens have voted the indyref through… So the SNP could postpone this in the interests of going full steam ahead for Indy,if they wanted to… They just don’t seem to want to!
The ball is in their court and not at Stuart Campbell’s feet.
Some excellent (and very worrying) points made on this thread, e.g. Capella’s just above and the redoubtable Crazycat on the previous one, who spoke so much sense with saeva indignatio. The latter asked where all this is going (after women have had their rights trampled) and another vulnerable group may well be our children.
Those of us who are old enough will remember how Jack Dromey, Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt as Labour members in the NCCL (now Liberty) were compromised during the PIE campaign to lower the age of consent to 14 (and an intent among the even more extreme PIE members to advocate the AoC should be reduced to 8 years old, IIRC).
To those who say why should this affect the SNP disproportionately when the other parties are supportive of the GRA, you need only think back to the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and The Named Persons legislation. Both had support from members of the Unionist parties initially but when the SNP “owned” them they were subjected to sustained attack and our wonderful media conveniently forgot about the previous general consensus.
No-one agrees with The Rev on everything, either in word or deed, but imo he has been fearless in the past in the cause of independence and has paid the price personally over a sustained period. He is quite justified in seeing this as an issue which goes to the core of Orwell’s nightmare vision of a reality-denying assault on language and rationalism.
lumilumi @ 8.32
I suspect the problem with younger women is that they never had to fight for these rights!
Like many of the previous comments I am appalled at the prospect women’s rigthts are being diluted and as a result will put them at risk. However a lot of flak is being directed at the SNP on this issue but I wonder what impact this would have if this proposed legislation did not get Parliament approval meaning Scotland would then be at odds with the International Court of Human Rights? Surely then any judgement in a Scottish Court would be subject to appeal.
McDuff 8.23
Church Of Scotland attitude.
http://archive.is/4KiAH
‘Not very impressed’ reponse to the Church Of Scotland
http://archive.is/Fya3k
Wee Free Church
https://freechurch.org/assets/documents/2018/PDFs/FCOS%20SG%20Transgender%20Consultation%20Response%20March%202018a.pdf
Scary when you find yourself agreeing with this from the WF
The Scottish Government seems to be proceeding on the basis of an unscientific political ideology which has no basis in reality.
December, is it Sanity Clause, or Insanity Clause, or simple Santa Claus?
Lets get Scottish Independence out the way first.
Simples.
Effijy says:
19 December, 2019 at 4:21 pm
“Be who you want to be but don’t expect the world to be redesigned just for you.”
Yup – Agree 100%. someone elses right to punch out their arm ends where the tip of my nose starts.
Mike Lothian says:
19 December, 2019 at 2:32 pm
“It’s usually easy to spot transphobes, they nearly always talk about transwomen and completely forget that transmen exist too
Nearly all their arguments fall apart when you point out that they’re advocating transmen use women only spaces
Our laws as they stand are not fit for purpose”
You clearly don’t understand the debate and as result it is no wonder you are on the wrong side.
People do not talk about transmen, because they are not a threat. It is not because the Rev or others like myself are transphobic.
Men commit 95 % of sexual crimes of violence. That is why the focus is on transwomen. If it were the other way round, then we would be worried about transmen.
If it were about transphobia then people like myself and the Rev would be complaining about transmen as well.
Of course the 95% stat will fall over time, because male sexual predators will be able to identify far more easily as women so they can serve their prison time in women’s prisons.
Personally. I really am bored with the gender stooshie. Let’s get independence done.
Stu , you were very important to our cause!
Many are now dismissing you as a trouble maker. I know that’s not the case, but it’s how it looks. We don’t need to give the media any help in trying to split our movement. Without independence we might as well give up and move away from Scotland and the UK.
It will be a dead zone.
Gary 45% says:
19 December, 2019 at 9:08 pm
December, is it Sanity Clause, or Insanity Clause, or simple Santa Claus?
All 3 maybe.
Today I cut a ladies bob style on a young man(by request) and a young male child wearing a dress in for a short back and sides.
An’ that’s no the hauf ay it.
Lol, Big Jock I would not worry about an Independence referendum, looks like it will never happen, just read this from Cubby on WGD –
“Gove lying again and the C4 interviewer lets him away with it.
Gove says:
“We had a referendum in 2014 and at the time everyone agreed the result of that referendum would be respected for a generation and Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond signed the Edinburgh Agreement on the basis that this referendum would be held and we wouldn’t hold another one for a whole generation to come.
Just lies. Plain and simple lies and the Britnat media colluding with the politicians by not challenging them.
Ciaran Jenkins you are a disgrace. Nothing but a propagandist.”
There was a case in England, last year, where a dude who claimed he was now a woman, because he said so, got sentenced to jail for some crime.. to a women’s prison, and therein assaulted some of the prisoners…. And this after he had already been found guilty of raping 2 other women, at an earlier time
The guy in question had claimed he was transitioning from man to women… but was still a man when he ended up in the women’s prison.
I have said before, that until a person is actually either a women become a man, or man become a women, especially in the men’s case, they should not be allowed to use bathrooms of the other.
As for Independence, with an Independent Scotland, I’m pretty sure the Laws will be made clear on such matters.
It is not a case of being against trans gender ppl, but of being practical, and of making sure everyone is safe.
Stu, maybe you and JK have something in common after all.
Mike Cassidy @ 9.21
Did you also notice in the replies from the Wee Free’s that they raised concerns about seeing Trans Rights Groups from other countries ( Canada was mentioned )being encouraged to participate in this consultation ?
Begs the Questions
Whits that aw aboot?
Did it happen last time?
Is that usual?
Rev… Do you know ???????
Labour has appointed the mp for Rochdale, Tony Lloyd as shadow Scottish Secretary.
Colony?…..
I think we will all have to rebel and protest tor independence… like the French do so well!! …..I wonder what would happen…. just for 1 day…. if all our exports just didnt go over the border to England?….even for one day…. I immagine that wld b a lot of cash…. and a terrible shame! Just an example but just sayin!! ?
@Abulhaq,
the option was Ian Murray which is to say there is no option,
Murray is a British Nationalist zealot who said he would happily destroy Scottish Labour to keep Westminster control of Scotland
and Corbyn hates Murray and Dugdale for losing Labour their chance of leading a coalition Gov in 2017 when they advicated voting Tory to keep SNP out.
,
Talking of transmen
Here’s an interview this week with a transman
Who helps run the Scottish Trans Alliance which promotes the T of LGBT.
Morton describes the surgery when he had his breasts removed in a disarmingly matter of fact way as “just removing some tissue that didn’t need to be there”. He was more conflicted about taking testosterone “adding medication into my body that could affect my brain”. And when, later, he had a hysterectomy, his mother’s reaction surprised him more than his own.
http://archive.is/FpptC
How the NHS defines a hysterectomy.
If I went to my GP and said I really feel I was born as a one-armed man
The disconnect between my feeling and my two-armed status has led to a lifetime of mental health problems
Could I have one-armed affirmation surgery and have my leftarm amputated
The GP would immediately think ….
This will go against the grain.
I have been one of Nicola’s biggest critics. But just recently my faith has been restored in her. I have a feeling she knows exactly what she is doing.
I think there will be a referendum next October or November.
What the fuck has happened to this site?
Abulhaq says:
19 December, 2019 at 4:17 pm
From today’s Unionist Guardian.
On Thursday afternoon a separate bill setting out how referendums in Scotland will be run will reach its final stage at Holyrood. But this framework bill does not set the date or question on the ballot, which have to be specified in further primary legislation.
The Electoral Commission confirmed on Monday that the bill had accepted its recommendation of a minimum 10-week campaign period. Added to the required 26-week lead-in period, that would mean a referendum would need nine months from the passing of legislation in Holyrood to polling day, making the chance of holding one in 2020 increasingly unlikely.
Why? I thought there were 12 months in 2020, have I missed something?
@ Liz g at 9.48
Yes, for the first consultation a lot of the responses came from outwith Scotland. I’m not certain that that included Canada, but I think it did.
PLEASE. Keep your eyes on the prize. INDEPENDENCE. I share your frustration with this trans-gender issue and its potential impact upon womens’ rights but to be blunt, this isn’t your battle to fight. Women themselves are capable of fighting this fight and they are doing so. You are actively fragmenting the YES ‘movement’ with this. Please leave this toxic issue alone and focus on the big picture. Please.
@ mike cassidy at 10.15
There are instances of people approaching surgeons and trying to have healthy limbs amputated – it’s called apotemnophilia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_dysphoria).
Sometimes when denied this, they try to perform the surgery themselves.
There is, of course, a resemblance between apotemnophila and autogynephilia.
The part of the Queen’s Speech dealing with Tory plans to make radical constitutional and judicial changes shows former attorney General Dominic Grieve was justified in his recent warnings that Johnson is wanting to close down the ability of citizens to seek judicial review of government use of power.
@ Mitchell MacBeth
You could not be more wrong. It is absolutely crucial that men, especially those with a high profile, express their support and solidarity.
Women are indeed highly capable, but we need to know, and for it to be obvious to others, that we are not alone.
Any fragmenting of the Yes movement is being done by the TRAs/MRAs – they would like nothing more than for women to be isolated and side-lined.
And finally, yet again, the PRIZE of independence, which we all want, is in danger of being scuppered by this, so it is absolutely NOT a red herring, or something that can “wait”.
@ George Wood.
” our laws are not fit for purpose ”
Nail on head there, if our laws, or in this example English law can be applied in the manner above, then it really is unfit for purpose along with those trusted to administer them.
A better argument for a written constitution, approved by the people, could not be found. Only with independence will we get the opportunity to put things right, certainly not in this union.
From all the bile and hate on here is one to assume that Transgender Independence supporters would not be welcome by all the anti-Transgender posters on here. Just saying that calling Transgender folk as ‘having a mental illness’ as a prominent contributor wrote on here is less than helpful to their position. A lot of Transgender people don’t have an easy time. So many posts on here come across as being spiteful and extremely hateful towards people the vast, vast majority try to keep their heads down and not cause a stir.
I thought this blog was raised to support Independence, lately it appears to be doing anything but.
The SNP are the only chance we have to gain Independence, I think people who really want Independence need to think hard where their allegiances really are and what cause they are fighting for.
I did wonder whether your account was suspended by Twiiit because they were aware of this case and seeking to protect themselves from damage, as clearly your account’s ‘primary purpose’ is not to create harm.
in other news, Rowling comes out for science.
Oh dear …my enemy’s enemy … and all that.
Old Pete 10.47
The transactivists actions meant I couldn’t vote for an SNP candidate in the election
In an election where every seat counted, those transactivists didn’t care about independence.
Only their own cause.
If Hanvey hadn’t stood as an independent, I would have Labour’s Lesley Laird as my local mp.
People who thinks this isn’t directly linked to the cause of independence are fooling themselves
Sadly the more I read of sane people denying simple science the more I think it is a mental illness to deny that the denial of science is mental illness.
OK ,did you follow that?
Eternal truths trashed in a generation sounds like an explanation for the destruction of dinosaur.
@ Liz g – the last consultation had only 49% of responses from within Scotland. The majority were from other countries, mostly rest of the UK. See the report on the Scot Gov website – scroll down to the Annex 1 for a list of respondents.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/review-gender-recognition-act-2004-analysis-responses-public-consultation-exercise-report/
pipinghot @10:20
you’re new
now, fuck off
Crazycat 10.35
That was new to me.
I thought I was being slightly witty too.
But having read this
Most BIID sufferers, however, describe their feelings in terms in terms of identity, instead. “My left foot is not a part of me,” said one of Smith’s patients. “It feels right,” says another sufferer, “the way I should always have been and for some reason in line with what I think my body ought to have been like.” “I didn’t understand why,” says yet another, “but I knew I didn’t want my leg.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20180102160903/https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2012/may/30/1
Sounds familiar.
And who knew Scotland was a pioneer in the amputation of healthy limbs.
What next?
Healthy wombs? (rhetorical)
While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
‘Robert Burns’
Hi Smallaxe – great to hear from you – and what an entrance too. Good old Rabbie said it first. Facts are chiels that winnae ding.
and Tinto Chiel upthread too. Good to hear some voices of reason returning.
Speaking of independence. Can anyone explain how today’s letter about a Section 30 is any different to the letter requesting a Section 30 in 2016?
Particularly the Sturgeon devotees who insisted that 2016 wasn’t an “official”
request.
Johnson has an impregnable majority. Why would he concede anything? There is an existential threat to the Scottish nation, our enemy was at its weakest since 1940, and our leaders tried to save England from itself.
Looking forward to 2021, give us another mandate, they’ll have to listen this time.
Off topic has anyone seen in d car today looks like they are trying to steal your idea of having a yes party for 2nd choice on the next Scottish election.(spell check keeps giving me Hollywood ) They reckon if we get over 50% of the vote that’s enough to get independence.
Also Capella please keep me informed when the women’s groups have a response to the GRA so I can complete my objection
@ Marie M – will do. I have a Twitter account an follow For Women Scotland where this info is usually posted. You can check their website too if you don’t do twitter.
https://forwomen.scot
It takes 9 months for a referendum. There are 12 in 2020. So it will be October 2020. Stu you are not right. You might be right come February if nothing is in place. But as of today 2020 hasn’t yet begun.
Hi Capella,
Wishing you and all Wingers Peace, Love and Sanity.
🙂
@ mike cassidy at 11.10
I remember reading an article a few years ago (though I can’t recall where) about a man trying to saw off his own leg in the bath – he may even have succeeded – after being refused surgery, and another man achieving his wish, but the surgeon getting into bother for agreeing to do it.
I don’t like the thought of any irreversible bodily alterations (even tattoos, though some of those are works of art) – there seems like far too much scope for later regret.
Holocaust Denial = This is unacceptable
Science Denial = Meh, mkay, dat’s cool…
If we are living in a society full of folk that think they are so bloody smart and environmentally conscious, how come my local council yards are full of pushbikes discarded because they have a flat tyre or the chain came off the sprocket.
Fuck me, 50 years ago we put a man on the moon with less tech than is in a smartphone, and yet the generations since then can’t even fix a bastardin puncture or get their fingers dirty to put the chain back on the sprocket.
A neighbour came round the other day and said the oil light was on in their car. I went to investigate…
I put 2.5 litres in before it reached the bottom of the dipstick. The engine is designed to hold 3.5 litres…
So basically the engine had been attempting to lubricate and cool itself on less than 1 litre of dirty treacle like oil which couldn’t even cover the oil pump pickup pipe on corners.
I occasionally pull out my Molesworth’s pocket engineering book from 1900, flick through the pages to remind me the human race apparently peaked a long time ago.
If the dumbness contagion has now infected the legal profession then all bets are off on where we go from here.
There’s definitely a void opening up in society that needs to be filled by a pro science and logic party to retain a sense of systemic order.
Thanks Capella I don’t do Twitter but will check out their website
Bet Boris does not even bother to answer the letter
Interesting stuff above rev and it might prove to be a future thorn like the named person stuff
@ Dan
Have you read this? – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geek-Manifesto-Why-science-matters/dp/0552165433
I borrowed it from the library not long after it was written, and didn’t agree with the author’s views on nuclear power, but his overall argument is hard to counter, and not much will have changed (at least not for the better) in the intervening 6 years.
“Now I ask you to please drop the issue. This has no bearing on independence”
Yes it fucking does, for reasons I’m tired explaining over and over and over again.
@ Smallaxe – backatcha 🙂
@crazycat
No I haven’t as I’m too busy fixing other people’s fuckups and election campaigning!
Don’t the years roll by quick though eh, it feels like a 5 year Westminster parliament term is about 1.5 years…
It’ll soon be time to plant out seeds for veg again. Coz that does actually need to follow reality of science and adhering to the growing seasons.
The ground thawed enough today for me to lift the last dozen or so parsnips which are as sweet as can be after frost initiates a natural antifreeze production in the plant which makes them sweet.
One measured over 2 feet long (4 smartphone lengths for millennials).
Anyway, I’m heading away for crimbo, might do a New Year loonydook again, tbh the way things are going getting in the sea and not coming out seems an attractive proposition.
>Tinto Chiel says:
..To those who say why should this affect the SNP disproportionately when the other parties are supportive of the GRA, you need only think back to the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and The Named Persons legislation. Both had support from members of the Unionist parties initially but when the SNP “owned” them they were subjected to sustained attack and our wonderful media conveniently forgot about the previous general consensus.
Exactly. And I think Sturgeon will be aware of that and pragmatic enough to boot this issue down the road when the consultation shows enough opposition, regardless of any personal beliefs. The tabloids would love another stick to whack us with during an increasingly likely indyref2 campaign in the next few years. I reckon she’s aware by now that pushing this through would be walking into a trap.
Similar reason I don’t agree with accusations of giving up on indy. She wants independence as much as anyone, but I think she’s pragmatic enough to play the long game:
1. Building up a case where playing reasonable has achieved nothing – with increasing awareness and resentment of how Scotland is politically irrelevant in the UK. Voters will be reminded of polls where most Tories would choose Brexit over Scotland.
2. Realistic enough to see enough old pensioners need replaced with more indy-friendly younger voters.
3. More time for the unionist press to lose readership and influence to social media.
4. Seven years is considered a political generation – 2021 neutralises that hurdle too.
5. Salmond Trial will be history, win or lose.
2021 Holyrood election will effectively BE indyref2 imo.
What a disaster if a single issue split the party, when there might never be a better chance.
@ Onwards
I find it funny this ‘single issue split the party’ as if its the people who are critical of the SNP policies that are ‘splitting the party’ and not the dumbfuck policies themselves?
What if women get sensible about it and decide en masse not to vote again for them? Whose fault would that be?
@ mike cassidy 4.01pm OMG I never in a million years thought I would feel sorry for jaickey rowling after her interference in indy1 but she is being ripped asunder in the replies to her tweet
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033
If anyone posting here doubts the importance of this GRA issue just read the poisonous vile tweets to her support for Maya Forstater , these people are dangerous and deluded
This is a can of worms that should have been left fully sealed
Tinto and Smallaxe back on the same day.
🙂
Man alive, it’s like the Magnificent Seven…who’ll be next to come moseying in?
@joe – I’m saying it would be a disaster if it came to that now.. I’m assuming there’s enough common sense within the SNP for a bit of realpolitik after recent developments.
I’m assuming it’s been genuinely intended as a well-meaning proposal to make things easier for a handful of messed-up individuals. Whilst ticking a progressive box for the righteous crowd.
Turns out to be FAR more divisive and controversial than first anticipated. All the crazies come out of the woodwork, eyes get opened.. Pushing through simple self-ID now looks more like self-sabotage.
It’s open to abuse from lunatics. Disturbing effects on free speech becoming clear. Bitchy drama queens provoking conflict between groups.. Sturgeon was obviously in favour, but she’s not totally crazy. Consultation gives a chance to put a lid on it, whilst keeping her head held high imo.
It’s just far more likely to be a major potential vote-loser than vote-winner.
Imagine the headlines waiting in store during the next campaign.. Putting the fear into women, especially for their kids. That’s worse than the pensioner stuff. Project Fear 2 off to a flying start right there..
Under the same logic, I could identify as black. The reaction to that would be to be accused of racism and cultural appropriation by many of the same people who want to deny the reality of biological sex.
We’re living in dangerous times – information and mis-information. But the heart and soul of the one party in Scotland which is able to achieve Scottish Independence is being hi-jacked by an aggresive and oppresive small cadre of zealots. Anyone who expresses a view that is not entirely in line with their dogma is “outed”, “black-listed” and declared a transphobe.
At first I thought this was just some pet project of the Rev and I would skip by. We all get into pointless online arguments which have no resolution. I figured this was one of those.
Then over the past few weeks of getting involved in Twitter exchanges and slowly immersing myself in the goings on, I’ve now reached a postion of going “holy fuck, this is serious”.
I am 100% in favour of equality for all – women, men, children, whatever gender you identify yourself with, your race, your religion, political views. Whatever.
But equality for one group or minority cannot be allowed to trump another.
We need to work out a way to ensure that evoryone’s rights are respected and that means compromise. Unfortuntely this is very much an issue where a very small minority (literraly a few thousand in Scotland) are demanding precedence over the rights of half the population. It’s a case of an organised core being extremely shouty for what at first glance seems like a reasonable cause. But when you get into the practicality of what they’re trying to achieve, you can see that it can only be achieved at the expense of millions of women.
This is why it is serious and why is has consequences for the Scotland to come.
When no opposition to the rights of the trans minority is allowed, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Who is next to outed, demonised, silenced and removed from public life?
What happened to telling specific interest groups like Eurosceptics or Socialists to go for Indy first, then achieve their aims? That doesn’t apply here?
Boys will be girls, and girls will be boys,
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world,
And so’s Lola.
It’s a tragedy, a party like the SNP consumed by Transvestites at the top. I’m surprised the First Minister made her Charles Stuart Parnell style media statement about ‘ no person being able to stop the choice of a nation “ without reference to the supreme cause of Tranvestiteism.
Maybe she should have. Maybe she should have stood there wearing a big dildo making as statement as Mr Sturgeon. The international audience would have loved it. A big cod piece too.
But here’s the question. Why has the SNP allowed itself to be hijacked into this folly. It is frankly like a cancer that rots from within. So get to it Nicola, a dildo and a cod piece should be de-rigour for every media briefing. It’s your party, it’s your show, stand up man and be proud.
And next – will that be the right for consensual sex with your dog or your donkey.
Or what the right to self decide your age. That’s a serious one. Could certainly have an impact on all aspects of life. Yeh, wizard policy Nicolas
But to misquote another …
The lunatics are on the grass, the lunatics are on the grass,
The lunatics are in my hall,
And everyday the paperboy brings more,
And if your head explodes with dark foreboding
We’ll see you on the dark side side of the …..
My sentiments exactly. Independence with dysfunctional societal values and no freedom of speech is not worth having. This is not something that can be reversed once implemented.
Kapellmeister 10:41:
This was at the end of page 48 of the Tory GE Manifesto.
It’s designed for one thing only. To prevent anyone like Gina Miller from throwing a legal or constitutional spanner in the works to prevent Johnson or any Minister in his Government from any challenge to any decision they make no matter how outrageous. Including impeachment.
Trump would give his family away for such leeway as Johnson is aiming for here.
Forget the majority. With the Henry VIII powers Johnson is intending there will be very little, if any, Parliamentary scrutiny of anything meaningful.
Welcome to feudalism where people are publically ostracised (at least only for now, burning at the stake might take a bit more time), prevented from earning any kind of living, and declared the modern equivalent of outlaws for holding and expressing scientific truths and realities.
It won’t be too long – because the law IS based on precedent – before holding and expressing the “belief” in Scottish Independence is declared a hate crime on the basis that it directly attacks the dignity and human rights of Unionists.
Don’t say Campbell didn’t warn you.
Stunning silence in media today re J K Rowlings intervention in the twitter/trans debate.
I notice the Daily Mail has decided to run it but all others are giving it a wide void whilst on twitter it is manic.
Maybe that shows the demise of the newspaper is well and truly happening as younger folk are getting all their news from their phones.
Times are definitely a-changing.
http://archive.is/IBZw9
Guardian on jk Rowling twitter response
Remember the days when saying you are Napoleon would secure you a nice wee stay in a locked ward in the local hospital. You’d be given a load of drugs, maybe a nice new jacket and loads of leisure time.
Ah good times.
Republicofscotland says:
19 December, 2019 at 2:51 pm
“…if the bill goes through, how is not being independent going to help repeal it.”
Not being independent would be an impediment to repealing this repulsive bill.
Because whether Stu likes it or not, there are tens of thousands of us who will vote SNP despite, take your pick of umpteen valid reasons for not voting for them and innumerable trivial, nonsensical and totally bogus ones.- Until such times as there is a changing of the flags ceremony and a big fireworks display at Edinburgh Castle.
Then we can punish the bastards for their many sins, real and imagined – but not until Britain begins at Berwick.
Kat 11:57:
You mean this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tnPG1v61AEk
Col. Blimp IV 1:12
This is getting tedious.
Look, it’s simple mathematics.
There – will – be – no – Yes – to – Independence – vote – without – a – majority – from – the – 2.34 million – women – in – Scotland.
Period. No if’s. No buts.
The SNP membership is around 125,500. The population of Scotland is around 5.5 million. The 45% of the vote secured by the SNP last week’s means that mathematically 55% did not vote SNP.
You – cannot – rely – on your – core – vote – to – win – independence.
You – need – to – win – over – other – people – to – win – Independence. Including – women.
If – you – want – to – secure – that – massive – demographic – to – YES – then – you – have – to – deal – with – this – unscientific -and – reality – defying – issue – which – is – DEFINATELY – going – to – lose – support – for – independence – from – people – you – need – to – win – over.
That’s how it is. That’s the nailed on objective reality.
Whether you or others who take the same cavalier approach like it or not is totally irrelevant.
It’s only your subjective opinion. And reality is not very kind to wishful thinking.
Got it yet?
The attack on JKR – oh the irony- think most of us had her blocked in 2014, is opening a lot of eyes.
The people on here saying it’s nothing to do with indy have no idea how much self ID is hated by many.
The point, of course is that few have heard about it, but the number of TW telling JKR to suck their dicks, may will shock many.
One of the gender critical woman I follow on twitter posted up one of the most offensive posts I’ve seen in some time, from a Queer groups celebrations.
It had two rows of effigies dressed like the handmaidens in the HMs Tale, hanging from two rows of gibbets – the quote was hang all T**Rfs and now JKR is being called this also.
This is hate, pure and simple and the fact that NS and others in the SNP are turning a blind eye, is shocking to me.
“NO one expects … THE TWITTER INQUISITION” (monty python spanish inquisition sketch)
come on down folks, says Brucie for a game of
IDENTITY POLITICS CHARACTER ASSASSINATION BINGO
spin the wheel of fortune and see what ISM you are guilty of, you filthy IST
– and no one is immune.
Questions are being asked about the “HOOK NOSED MONEY GOBLINS” in Harry Potter and whether or not Jakey is dealing in, ahem … “anti semitic tropes”
– of course, ripping off wizard shit and tom browns schooldays puts a lot of filthy green in the bank, and she is rich enough to SUE GOD, if she so pleases.
popcorn time. petards hoisted. reaping what is sown. twitter is not your personal bully machine, it is an out of control WORLD RAGE MACHINE.
This whole situation is apalling, and never mind the GRA, it has already all happened according to existing (UK?) law under our very noses, it seems.
However, I absolutely reject and refute any “my road or the high road” attitude over this, just as with each and every other bandwagon issue. Important as they all may or may not be, Scottish independence is paramount. It is only with a new country and politicians finally “within easy kicking distance” that we can hope to make all such matters right.
It’s not as if the UK and its laws have helped. In fact, it is exactly why we have got to where we are now. A distinctively Scottish solution is what we urgently need, and the only way we can get it is with independence. Then the SNP, as with all other parties, will have to stand before the electorate on what it supports apart from the singular thing that has held our allegiance to it so far.
So no talk, please, about rejecting independence on any incidental grounds whatever. You’re either signed up for it as a matter of democratic principle or you’re pushing a crooked agenda.
Bloody hell it’s like banging your head against a brick wall!
How many times does it have to be pointed out before the penny drops? It’s not like it’s hard to understand.
To win independence requires getting a majority of the populace to vote for it. Some 2.34 million women/potentially registered voters in Scotland are over 16.
Do the maths.You cannot achieve a majority vote from that demographic unless the principles behind this are put to bed in the parties supporting Independence.
You cannot wait until after independence because there will be no after independence unless this is dealt with.
Why is this simple objective common sense fact of reality so bleedin’ difficult for some people to understand?
On the Trans issue.
Graham Linehan’s Photo Of The Year
“Nothing else comes close to showing the upside down, pretend progressivism of the gender movement than this photo of a man with a semi taking a seat that has traditionally gone to women for a hundred years.”
https://glinner.co.uk/photo-of-the-year/
As I said, what happened to this website, dickheads like ahundredthidiot that’s what.
To all those telling Stu to STFU about this issue, independence is paramount, we can sort this special interest group nonsense later:
The special interest group of women does not just comprise 52% of the electorate and the sex least likely to vote yes, we are also the sex that does the majority of the drudge and leg work in any political struggle.
Fighting alongside men towards a common cause, taken for granted and for over a hundred years told to prioritise the cause over women’s rights. For over a hundred years, once the cause was won (or lost), and we finally moved to fighting for women’s rights, we found our male comrades were at best uninterested in supporting us and at worst on the other side of the fight.
We remember how it was.
And in case you hadn’t noticed, it is striking that almost if not all demands that Stu put aside this issue are coming from men and that almost if not all female commenters agree with Stu.
We see how it is.
But do you remember Women for Independence? A not unimportant grassroots group that mobilised huge numbers of women and spoke to women voters during the independence campaign. Its members devoted huge amounts of effort, time and even money to fighting for an independent Scotland. Ring a bell?
Well, I have lost count of the number of Women for Independence members, including founding members and executive committee members, who have told me that they are not just standing at the crossroads of having to decide whether to put aside the fight for independence to defend our rights as women, but that they are fast coming to the conclusion that an independent Scotland where we have lost our rights is not one they wish to live in. Now, they tell me, we can at least rely on the Equality Act for some protection. But that’s UK legislation. They say we have no reason at all to take it on trust that we will have that protection in an independent Scotland. The law would fiirst need to be written. And we have no faith it will.
So maybe think about that. There is another hill we as women are willing to die on. And this time round it’s not independence anymore.
And no, to all those who say do it later – we can’t just fix it after independence. That is the whole point. Once we have lost the right to organise as a sex, it will be nigh but impossible unless the vast majority of men stand up to campaign for us. But given that it looks like the majority of male commenters on this site consider this a side issue not worthy of Stu’s attention, I’d be woefully naive if I ever thought these same men would actually stand up to fight for our rights after independence. There will always be a cause more worthy of their attention. These are just women’s rights after all.
So mind that when the Scottish Government pushes through GRA reform, not only will you NOT be convincing the sex least likely to vote yes to support independence, you’ll also be losing the many female campaigners without whom you cannot win it. Because we’ll be busy fighting for our rights.
Maren as a 68 year old grumpy guy I salute you and stand with you and your sisters , anyone who doesn’t know the work and dedication undertaken by Women for Independence must be living in a cave
JE SUIS FEMME
@ Tinto chiel 8.49pm I asked the other day in a comment where all this lunacy will end , and you mirror my thoughts exactly , your reference to P.I.E. rung a bell , this disgusting organisation was allegedly recruiting MP’s and senior members of the ESTABLISHMENT who had an interest in under age sex to push for it to be legalised
As you have referenced many influential figures were covertly supportive of their aims ,indeed Harriet Harman was embroiled in an expenses scandal where it was alleged that her husband had accessed porn sites which she had claimed expenses for
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10659100/Harriet-Harman-Jack-Dromey-Patricia-Hewitt-and-the-Paedophile-Information-Exchange.html
This is the thin edge of the web
One of your best pieces.
@Twathater: quite so. It’s astonishing how brazen these PIE types were and how influential as well at the time, but they won’t have gone away, will they? It just seems to me that once the sexually incontinent manage to invade women’s privacy with impunity, the next vulnerable group will be our children: they have no off-switch and are incredibly devious.
Maybe we should start the Grumpy Guys for Sanity Party since I am of a similar age…….
Dave Hansell
“Got it yet?”
Not sure what it is you want me to “get”.
I am not a member of the SNP – I was going to re-join but my knee jerk reaction to being confronted by more than two options in the “gender” section of the application form was – fuck you ya bunch of pretentious virtue-signaling bastards.
Nonetheless, they will continue to get my unequivocal support at the ballot box.
The doctrinal differences between the SNP “boss class” and myself include their insistence on taking numerous policy stances that create unnecessary “them and us” barriers between independence supporters and the yet to be convinced.
If you really believe that this latest trendy-lefty wheeze is the ace of trumhs in the extinguish Scotland, objective-reality and the human race, game.
You had better get to your branch, C.A. or whatever, PRONTO and start organising, enlist the help of Women for Independence, get the ball rolling on some appropriate conference resolutions, make it clear that you are able and willing to de-select any and EVERY MSP, MP and National Office Bearer who supports this dangerous nonsense.
Print out lapel stickers with the campaign Logo – I suggest a Napoleon Hat inside a red circle with a red diagonal line through it and get someone with access to a badge-making machine to make up loads of them for that big march in Glasgow in the New Year.
Crack open a case of spray-paint and get a team together to produce and promote a couple of snappy slogans REALITY – YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE! might do for starters.
Wishing you every success in your new venture
Sincerely Yours
Blimp
Col Blimp IV,
What any supporter of independence does or does not do; or votes is not the issue – wherever they happen to reside.
The refrain has been ‘leave this issue alone until after independence and then deal with it after independence.’
After having had it explained numerous times by a number of people the questions need to be put to you and others who continue to persist with this head in he sand position as to which of the following realities are you having problems with?
– An Independence vote cannot be won on the basis of neither the SNP vote nor the level of support outside of the SNP for Independence.
– An Independence vote can only be won by winning the votes of people outside of the already converted.
– Persisting with a policy which is going to be perceived as adversely impacting on the hard won rights of 2.34 million registered voters is not, I’ll say that again louder, NOT going to achieve a YES vote for Independence.
– It is already turning off committed supporters of Independence and forcing them to make totally unnecessary choices. When it is having such an adverse impact inside he movement for Independence what impact do you think it is having outside the SNP and the movement?
– It will therefore adversely impact on the ability of the Independence movement to achieve a YES vote in any Independence referendum.
Moreover,
– The advice given here is totally at odds with the position adopted of leave this alone and concentrate only on Independence.
Consequently, Col, the question needs to be put: Which is it?
Leave it alone or and focus on Independence or get stuck in on dealing with the issue within the movement and be accused of all the nonsense that Campbell is facing from your side of the fence from undermining Independence to being a security service mole.
Take your time. No rush. Anytime this year.
@ Tinto Chiel 9.55am I definately agree that our children and grandchildren are seriously at risk from this open denial of science and biology , as we agree this headlong rush into these very DARK corners must be exposed and vilified as must the proponents of this lunacy
The Rev is taking inordinate amounts of abuse from some quarters who wrongly IMO believe that this is a side issue to independence , but as I have repeatedly said , without this forensic exposure and his dogmatic approach this may well have passed under the radar
We ALL want to live in a better and more caring country but we all have to be constantly aware that the dark forces are ever present . Tinfoil hat firmly in place
Amen to all that. I’ve a Bacofoil fedora, btw….
Bacofoil fedora you say !
I find the whole transsexual politics fascinating. One thing I like about being in my fifties is the span of decades I can have my own reflection.
The first interaction I had with someone of trans was a cousin, one of a few dozen, who puzzled me so as a wee boy that my mum told me they didn’t know is she was a girl or boy when born . This is obviously more of a rarer hermaphroditism. Though it did alert me to the idea that nature works in a full spectrum and that is natural.
Norms are being challenged and rightfully so in many cases.
It seems that both of these challenges to the existence of this planets most prolific organisation , the UK, and conventional male heterosexual domination are giving folk the fear. Fair does.
There just has to be
Geez! The amount of males asking you to drop this Gender Colonisation of Sex Based Rights! SHOWS MOST MALES HAVE ZERO UNDERSTANDING OF FEMALE SEX BASED NEEDS AND OUR LIVED REALITY!
Did you know gents, that 81% of Females suffer sexual abuse systematically, either verbally or physically over their lifetime? From cat calls to 13yr old girls by fathers who should know better to rape. Oh but what about men … Well men suffer 46% over a life time and Trans 47% …. the abusers for all these dynamics is 99% Male perpetrated regardless of gender Identity!
Do you know what ladies loos and changing rooms are used for other than peeing and changing? Hiding from stalkers and a sanctuary from domestic violence perps, who stalk victims during escape months, a place to miscarriage safely with female help when it happens in Tesco or at the gym. ! To escape from unwanted Male attention on a night out, to wash the blood off your hands and legs after a heavy mensus hits while at the theatre! To seek safety when a panic attack overcomes a rape victim and gain female comfort in distress! But ladies! We must not talk of such things ….it upsets the hurty feelings of people who don’t experience the hidden side of female biology!
What happens in Gender Neutral loos and changing rooms? The urinary leash is invoked, Women’s use declines, practicing Jewish and Muslim Women can’t use them, Women avoid them, reducing fluid intake & holding on until they get home, causing issues with incontinence and UTI, incidence of video voyeurism rises, so your wee girl ends up on Porn Hub peeing to give fetish dudes their jollies! Having to wash fluid (yes, not just pee and poo) off loo seats after a male has had his moment in the cubicle.
But yes, let’s just forget it all cause Independence is the utmost priority and nothing like bad governance must be reported on in the meantime. Women and Girls can just suck it up and if a few are harmed along the way well that’s a shame but independence was worth it.
Well gents, I have news for you …. Women are not going to stand by and say Ok! We will fight this tooth and nail along side fighting for independence, The quicker you realise this and support the sex based protections that Women fought for, for your Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Nieces, Aunts and Grannies … and Men …. males needs maybe different but some males do need Male only space, just because you are not supposed to show vulnerability doesn’t mean there are not vulnerable men standing next to you in the loo … who sought sanctuary and a mins peace from his own trauma.
If you want this to go away … then get on board on mass and support sex based rights and protections this spring, look at the consultation guidance that will be issued by Grassroots Women’s Goups and support Scottish Females….. it really is not a Females job to move over for any male who demands they are somehow magically female, no matter how they present. Some things must be delivered on the reality of biological sex based need! It is NOT about PEEING AND SPORT, it’s about intimate dignity, privacy and safety. The issues that men never, ever consider when they think “Women” .
Thank you Stu for being a voice and taking the abuse along side us …. I have worked in the VAWG sectors for years and faced abuse from very abusive men but never have we faced the level of vile misogyny, rape and death threats that we get at the moment for pointing out that females have a biology of need distinct from all males!
forwomen.scot and Women and Girls Scotland will be issuing guidance in January for anyone who wants to fill in the Scot Gov consultation. We can accommodate Trans in society sensibly without having to rip up the rights and Protection Women fought for and need. What we don’t need is men like Mr G there in female space and trust me when I say neither do current old school GRC holding Transexuals, who seem to have been silenced in this too, though they are working with Women’s Groups to try to be heard over the noise of Gender Ideology Policy Capture.
Have a good Christmas and an Indy New Year … game on …. we CAN DO BOTH …. WE ARE SCOTS and have coped with worse over the years.
Fuck sakes, its getting like the daily mail in here. Do you not get up to Scotland much anymore stu? Not sure what you remember of it but not every guy here is a rapist, even the ones who want to be women. Your prejudices are really showing when you are insinuating that some guy is a kiddy fiddler because he has a beard and wants to be called them rather than he.
My god what a weird judge! He calls Forstater “bitter“ and sounds more like some Uni undergrad ticking her off for having slipped up on the woke language the students all use. The creepiest bit is the intersex stuff and that it’s clear that he thinks real biologists are abandoning the idea there are only two sexes. What the hell?! Also the stuff in section 83 about genes being switched on and off, that’s literally how everything in your body works. It’s not some separate thing that therefore somehow makes the crazy idea of multiple sexes possible. ?????