The very notion that women exist
Trevor Phillips on Stonewall’s attacks on the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, starting with wondering what has happened to what used to be the gay rights movement.
Today, that gay rights movement seems a shadow of itself, preoccupied by the intricacies of a language despotism that has emerged from the faculty lounges of minor North American universities. The latest step, a call for the UN to revoke the status of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, of which I was the founding chair, is baffling. Who could have imagined that LGBTQ+ campaigners would so contort themselves that they are petitioning a body which is advised on human rights by countries that stone women and imprison gay men?
As we know, it’s about gender recognition and access to women’s spaces.
When we created the EHRC we insisted on its independence, not just from government but from sectional interests and powerful lobby groups too. I know that this infuriated some racial and religious groups, who never stopped trying to get me sacked. The problem is that for these sectional interests, independence meant doing what they wanted. They regarded any consideration of the needs of others as a betrayal of their right to shape the world exactly to their desires, and anyone who did not do their bidding as a ‘phobe’.
That’s trans activism right there – it’s peculiarly bad at considering the needs of others. Since in this instance “others” are about 99% of humanity, it’s odd that the activism has such passionate fans and allies.
The trans extremists threaten not only the standing of the LGBTQ+ movement, but the hard-won gains of the anti-discrimination movement of the past 50 years. To start with, the point at issue is not compassion for people in pain, nor the rights of trans women and trans men, which are clearly laid out in law. What is being sought by a small minority is the eradication of the very notion that women exist. What the small minority of largely ‘natal men’ campaigners actually want is for sex to be declared a matter of the imagination – specifically their own.
If these fantasists got their way any individual could declare themselves any sex – or none – at any time. Unfortunately for this group, the basis of discrimination law is that people have characteristics which lead to others unjustifiably depriving them of opportunities. Remove this capacity to claim discrimination and any remedy against injustice becomes impossible to enforce. So much for pay gap reporting or claims for equal pay.
But what does that matter compared to the thrill of Validation?
The gay rights movement is not merely a “shadow” of its former self. It’s been eaten from the inside by parasites and completely supplanted, not to say obliterated, by T+. There is no longer any LGB in traditional organizations that used to support gay rights. Hence the need for the LGB Alliance.
In order to protect groups from prejudice, or to even detect that they are subject to prejudice, we first need to know what the group is. How do we know that there is bias against X unless we know what X is? How do we look for it in e.g. crime data unless we know what to track?