15th July 2020 8pm
It’s been an eventful few weeks since the meeting on 24th June 2020 – I’ve been banned from Medium for the crime of posting a summary of our first meeting. But happily we have found a new home.
We’ve had the shocking spectacle of Google joining forces with Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence to send an email to Boris Johnson urging him not to ‘roll back’ on trans rights.
We have seen the attempts of Allison Bailey to raise money to take her own Chambers and Stonewall to court blocked by the fund raising platform she trusted – but watched her raise her target of £60K in breakneck speed.
We have seen J. K Rowling’s account of her experiences of sexual abuse twisted and used against her by men who apparently can’t stoop low enough to silence an uppity bitch.
We’ve watched the sobering Newsnight report on the Tavistock and seen how Sonia Appleby, now brings a legal claim as the Named Professional for Safeguarding Children and the Safeguarding Children Lead at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
All of this tells me that the Gender Recognition Act and its conflation of sex and gender, has had a massive and detrimental impact on our society and our ability to conduct open, honest and civil public conversations. But there are many of us with the energy to now try and do something constructive. I have had 28 emails setting out the skill set of the group; its varied and impressive. I’ve had input from Scottish and Irish activists which hopefully we can share here to spark more discussion.
We are still waiting for any announcement from the Government as to what their reform proposals will actually look like.
I don’t want to lose momentum so I propose that we meet again on July 15th 2020 at 8pm – Zoom link is here
Meeting ID: 424 788 8422
Password: 456123
Please join the discussion on this website or contact me with any agenda items – sarahvphillimore@Gmail.com
Key aims
I think the key now will be to form smaller subgroups where people can get to know and trust one another, while the over arching aim of the wider group is to have this conversation as openly and publicly as possible – we are doing nothing wrong in meeting to discuss the laws of our own country. We are exercising our protected rights of political speech and we will not be threatened, harassed or censored.
I would like us to start gathering resources and ‘explainers’, to set up a good library of accessible sources, to increase our own and others’ knowledge.
I would like to consider setting up some kind of webinar with guest speakers to help us spread awareness and interest – please let me know what topics and what speakers you would like to hear about or from.