Lesley Barnett

Enjoying life, previous career in HR, wife, mother, feminist. Sex is not an Identity! #IstandbyJKRowling #sexmatters #IStandWithSallGrover

[TransgenderTrend @Transgendertrd]

"Put simply, it takes physically healthy children with normal pubertal development and subjects them to powerful drugs which may weaken their bones, affect their ability to think, damage sexual function and make them unable to have children of their own"
- Dr Caroline Johnson.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Surreal headline, amazing that this even needed to be done.

This was never a left vs right issue but a battle for common sense. And common sense won.

One of my proudest moments in politics was intervening to stop this rubbish.

Thank you @ForWomenScot for leading the way.

[Sonya Douglas @SonyaDouglas]

Just 195 signatures now needed for Parliament to debate the NHS using desexed terms instead of plain, factual language for women’s healthcare

If you’ve ever fumed over advice for uterus owners or pregnant persons, this petition is for you

Last day ✍️

[Neale Hanvey🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @JNHanvey]

It is beyond doubt that the @BBC have been instrumental in promoting gender ideology, ignoring women and LGB voices and minimising active harms from offending to detransition.

🧵Well done @nickwallis for this candid thread, and more power to your elbow in driving needed change.

[Lesley Barnett @LJB140]

@NadiaWhittomeMP I see that @RachelTaylorMP my MP is one of the signatories. Sadly not surprised. I’d be interested to know how she thinks this will change the law and why she is so reluctant to support the rights of women and girls.

[Bev Jackson @BevJacksonAuth]

The audacity and hypocrisy of this woman are beyond belief.

Hunt laments ongoing “confusion” about sex and gender - which she has done more than anyone else in the UK to create.

She actually says - I’m not making this up - “It is our job to create good law.”

Hunt spent her entire time as CEO of Stonewall undermining the law, creating confusion and above all training public and private sector organisations nationwide to “go beyond the law.”

That meant - break the law. It meant acting as if the UK had sex self-ID. Which it has never had.

But institutions and organisations from the NHS to the police followed her lead. They misrepresented and broke the law.

And this monstrous individual - I’m sorry, I don’t use this word lightly - dares to say, in the House of Lords - in which her presence makes a mockery of our institutions:
“It is our job to create good law.”

How dare she.
How dare she!

[Bev Jackson @BevJacksonAuth]

It’s good to hear that NHS staff are no longer to be allowed to wear political symbols and badges at work. This should include Pride lanyards and “progress” badges, which are also politically polarizing - and not “inclusive” of those who know that sexual orientation is based on biological sex.

[Cathy Devine @cathydevine56]

So the Green Party also wants to remove the sex discrimination provisions for 51%+ of the population.
Women, girls & people who are same-sex attracted.
Consolidated in the 2010 Equality Act on the basis of sex.
They are a regressive, sexist, homophobic, utter disgrace.

[Cathy Devine @cathydevine56]

So the BMA also wants to remove the sex discrimination provisions for 51%+ of the population.
Women, girls & people who are same-sex attracted.
Consolidated in the 2010 Equality Act on the basis of sex.
The trade unions are a regressive, sexist, homophobic, utter disgrace.

[Bev Jackson @BevJacksonAuth]

Every MP who signs the motion tabled by @NadiaWhittomeMP to disapprove the “Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations” is displaying embarrassing ignorance of the law - as well as profound disrespect for the rights of women and girls, and of lesbians and gay men.

Do they even know that the “lesbian interveners” at the Supreme Court helped to secure the rights of homosexual women and men - which would otherwise have been lost?

The Supreme Court established that under the Equality Act, a lesbian is a biological woman who is sexually attracted to other biological women.

It rejected the vile idea that a man bearing a piece of paper with an F can be classified as a lesbian. That was incoherent, the court ruled.

Not just incoherent but a homophobic atrocity. So thanks a bunch, Nadia et al., that you want to turn the clock back on that ruling.

You know perfectly well (or am I assuming too much?) that the EHRC guidance is not the law. It simply helps service providers, associations and those overseeing public functions to apply the law.

But it sends a signal, doesn’t it - it tells people where you stand. You stand in the mud.

Your motion is not just a profound betrayal of so many of your constituents, it’s political madness. @Jonathan_Hinder is right: if you don’t snap out of it, the Labour Party is dead.

[Sonia Sodha @soniasodha]

Well this is quite the roll of dishonour - MPs who don't understand that the law in question is the Equality Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. So who are trying to prevent statutory guidance on that law from being approved, because 🤷‍♀️

https://t.co/hi0EC3Frvj

[Stuey Beef 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @stuey_beef]

Ed Davey has written to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson demanding she WITHDRAW official EHRC guidance protecting female-only spaces in toilets and changing rooms.

Let that land.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission — a statutory body — has produced legally grounded guidance telling employers and public bodies that biological men should not access women’s single-sex spaces.

This is not opinion.
This is not politics.
This is the settled legal position following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on the meaning of “woman” under the Equality Act.

And Ed Davey wants it gone.

His stated reason?

The guidance is not “compatible with long-standing British values.”

British values.

He used those words to argue AGAINST protecting women’s single-sex spaces.

The same Liberal Democrats who lecture the country about tolerance, inclusion and human rights are now lobbying a Labour minister to tear up statutory guidance that protects every woman in Britain who walks into a changing room, a refuge or a hospital ward.

This is not a fringe position within the Lib Dems.

Their leader wrote the letter.

The party has chosen its side.

It is not the side of women.

Repost if you think women’s single-sex spaces should be protected.

[Robert Abel @rj_abel]

Ed Davey has urged Bridget Phillipson to withdraw EHRC guidance protecting women-only toilets and changing rooms—guidance based on the Supreme Court’s Equality Act ruling. Calling it incompatible with “British values”, he’s chosen a side. It isn’t women.

[Women's Voices Australia @womensvoicesau]

Not sure I could love Germaine Greer any more than I do. Everytime I watch this clip 💜💜 her a little more. For all the sex denialists this is the original critique of “gender”. Take note: Women are a sex class.

[WomenAreReal @WomenAreReals]

Hey @TomSteyer, my mother has also loved sports her entire life, except she didn’t get to play sports in high school because her school didn’t have any women’s teams. She’s only a few years older than you & was in college when Title IX passed. She became the captain of the first women’s tennis team at her university.

My mom grew up watching her five brothers be celebrated for their athleticism. Meanwhile, she had no teams available to her. My mom is a naturally gifted athlete, but girls were expected to sit on the sidelines, cheer for boys, and never imagine themselves on the field.

Then, after Title IX passed, everything changed. Her university formed a women’s tennis team. She tried out, made the team, and became team captain. That opportunity, delayed for years, shaped her life. It gave her confidence, leadership, friendships, pride, and a sense of belonging that had been denied to her simply because she was female.

For millennia, women were kept out of public life, out of education, out of professions, out of the law, out of the vote, and yes, out of athletics, all on the basis of SEX, not gender.

And now we are told by you, Tom Steyer, to pretend that sex is irrelevant. That male bodies pumped have no advantage. That girls should just accept losing medals, titles, records, scholarships, and privacy. That after centuries of struggle, suddenly the category “woman” is opt-in for any boy who wants in.

But having inherited those rights from my mother and grandmothers who fought hard for them, I cannot and will not sit back and let you destroy them hard earned rights for future generations of girls.

[Audrey Ludwig MBE @AudreySuffolk]

Very clear and legally important. We lose sight of unlawfully discriminatory policies if we don’t measure sex data in accordance with the Equality Act

[Bev Jackson @BevJacksonAuth]

Here the union UNISON explains why it thinks the EHRC guidance - which has absolutely nothing to do with the workplace - is unworkable in the workplace.

I don’t know what is more abysmal about this post:
* the ignorance it displays;
* the confusion it amplifies;
* its contempt for women, lesbians and gay men who are entitled to single-sex spaces; or
* its implication that trans-identifying men will not, and cannot be expected to, abide by the law.

I used to be a strong supporter of trade unions. Workers need trade unions to represent them and to stand up for their rights.

They don’t need - no one needs - this rubbish.

[SEEN in Journalism @JournalismSEEN]

Your focus is wrong. Your framing is ‘a row’. You balance ‘trans rights’ and ‘women’s rights’ as if they are equal principles.

No - the question is whether sex and sexual orientation have legal status in law, or not.

This issue requires harder thinking based on what you know (we know you know) to be a fact: that sex and sexual orientation exist in reality. There is a campaign to remove legal protections from these realities. That is what you call on your post ‘trans rights’.

The BBC likes to treat the idea that one can change sex, and the knowledge that one can’t, as if they were both opinions of equal weight. It does this because it is afraid of gender identity activists.

You know there is no middle ground. You are secure enough, and well informed enough, to say so, and to conduct interviews built on that. It’s your duty as a journalist to do so.

It’s not to be minimised as a ‘row’. It’s a top down campaign to remove legal protection from sex and sexual orientation, and an active grassroots defence to prevent that happening. Trans-identified people have all the rights that everyone else has. They, plus allies, are engaged in a campaign fully to remove the legal status of two main cohorts: women and LGB people.

Maybe on a teatime drive programme it could be argued that these things need to be simplified. Not on Political Thinking.

Note: You shouldn’t adopt activist language as if it’s your own. ‘Be who they are’ ? - you can ask better questions than that.

Mary-Anne Stephenson isn’t on one side of the debate - she’s a neutral expert. You don’t need to ‘balance’ her via questioning style.

[Bev Jackson @BevJacksonAuth]

Here is a brilliant explanation of UNISON’s empty gesture in opposing the EHRC guidance, which is not - repeat, NOT - about workplaces!

[teresa smith @treesey]

Women make up over 75%
of UNISON’s 1.3 million members

What a disgrace of a union to act against the safety and dignity of its own members