The Divisions Open Up
The long simmering divisions within the former LGBTI+ groups have now come out into the open. According to one newspaper report new organisations such as the LGB Alliance, The Countess Didn’t Fight for This and Women’s Space Ireland have been recently established in a bid to discuss issues as various as lesbian erasure, the issue of male-bodied trans women in female prisons and the question of trans women in sport.
This follows a similar pattern in other countries.
We predicted almost a year ago that this would lead to a division within radical feminism itself between the established feminist groups and those who reject the transgender ideology which seeks to replace sex by gender as a marker of identity, those now referred to as TERFS or trans exclusionary radical feminists. We also noted that the vast majority of the feminist establishment follows the trans view and asked rhetorically where stood the likes of NWCI and Women’s Aid on the issue of violent sex offenders who are male-bodied being housed in the women’s prison in Limerick.
Affirmative medical care is particularly problematical in the case of under 16s who exhibit gender dysphoria, 80% of whom are girls.
A definitive answer has now been given by NWCI at any rate. It along with Amnesty International signed a letter drawn up by TENI, Transgender Equality Network of Ireland, which sets out the standard trans ideology on the matter and which calls
“on media, and politicians to no longer provide legitimate representation for those that share bigoted beliefs, that are aligned with far right ideologies and seek nothing but harm and division.”.
Amongst the opinions that Amnesty Ireland and the National Women’s Council of Ireland think should lead to people being stripped of political representation is opposition to “affirmative medical care of transgender people” and “the right to self-identification.” The affirmative medical care is particularly problematical in the case of under 16s who exhibit gender dysphoria, 80% of whom are girls.
While Amnesty has openly declared and defended its position on its website, the NWC has not; nowhere is the controversial letter referred to on its website.
One is bound to ask: How many of the scores of women’s groups affiliated to NWC support its stance? In particular where stands the Irish Countrywomen’s Association on the matter, one of the largest groups in the country but one which plays only a marginal role in the politics of the NWC. Certainly by comparison with TENI whose chairperson sits on the NWC Board, the ICA hardly figures.
Transwomen in Sport
This has already led to some discussion in the media. It means that transwomen who are male-bodied can claim full access to former single sex spaces such as women’s changing rooms, women’s refuges, dormitories and of course to take part in women’s sports. These sports include rugby, boxing, and mixed martial arts which are highly physical and in which male-bodied individuals have already created havoc. One such is Kelly Morgan in the sport of rugby, the commentary glosses over the question of biological disadvantages she brought to the sport. Morgan also seems comfortable being nicknamed “Beast” by her teammates now that she is playing female rugby. In weightlifting category at the 2019 Pacific Games Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand won two gold medals and a silver in the three heavyweight categories for women weighing more than 87 kilograms, or 192 pounds. Hubbard is physically male.
Fallon Fox, the first openly transgender MMA fighter, explained on Twitter that she “enjoyed” fracturing the skull of one of the first women to fight her, and that she loves, “smacking up TERFs in the cage…it’s bliss!”
An equally troubling outcome is the call to deny political and media representation to those who oppose the transgender ideology. That the NWC and Amnesty should make this call places them in the growing camp of those who would deny free speech and the right to hold opinions at variance with the “establishment view”. The campaign now is backed by the government which is drawing up new “hate crime” legislation
which will give legal effect to the demands of these groups. Furthermore the government is acting at the behest of the EU which now increasingly decides laws which nation states will adopt thereby further diminishing national sovereignty in favour of supra-national rule.
It is clear that the survival of free speech, the cornerstone of a liberal democracy, is set to become a most problematic and contentious issue in the near future.
DV, Community Foundation for Ireland and the UN
We have adverted before to the constant bias in the way the Domestic Violence or DV issue is presented in the media. That this bias has spread to other organisations is lamentable but hardly surprising. This was demonstrated by the appearance of an article in the Irish Times on Nov 24 on the dangers faced by women in the home over the holiday season. The article began by noting that the following day Nov 25 is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women marking the start of a 16 day campaign of protest by women’s groups. This is a practice now firmly embedded in the calendar under UN auspices. We will come back to the UN but first we note that the author of this blatantly partisan article is Denise Charlton, CEO of Community Foundation for Ireland, a charity which dispenses funding raised from businesses to community organisations: At the Community Foundation for Ireland, we are providing about €15 million in grants to volunteers, communities and charities – including those in the frontline of domestic violence – this year.
Charlton is far from being an impartial observer at least on the DV issue. She was CEO of Women’s Aid, an organisation run by radical feminists which we noted in an earlier article spread a falsehood to the effect that 198,000 women suffered financial abuse each year (at the hands of their overwhelmingly male partners). This falsehood was run in collaboration with AIB in a video titled The Abusive Teller Machine.
Feminists have turned the UN into the “global headquarters of feminist missionaries” according to Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young
It is to be observed that the UN does not call for an International Day for the Elimination of Violence. That does not fit the ideology of the UN which is overwhelmingly dominated by radical feminism. There is only one set of victims, male victims are never mentioned. It is hard to keep track of all the UN agencies devoted to this campaign: UN Women, UNIFEM development fund for women, INSTRAW International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, DAW Division for the Advancement of Women, all lavishly funded and directed at the top by radical feminists and there are UN conventions to boot like CEDAW, Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. UN Women is a single mega agency which incorporates 1300 gender focal points. These exist to address “women” or “gender” in the UN system according to feminist Jacqui True who insists it is not enough.
Feminists have turned the UN into the “global headquarters of feminist missionaries” according to Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, authors of Legalising Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men.
Has any unit done an audit of the money used to fund these groups? Duplication, Overlap, Inefficiency, Waste of resources all come to mind here as well as Bloated Bureaucracy. If further proof was needed we can quote the Secretary General himself: The #COVID19 pandemic is demonstrating what we all know: millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls & boys. — @antonioguterres https://bit.ly/2G8Rqh3