More than 100 MPs have now signed the motion I tabled alongside colleagues to disapprove the Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations.
This motion is currently the only available mechanism by which MPs can reject the EHRC’s Code of Practice; if debated and passed within the 40-day scrutiny window, it would prevent the EHRC from issuing the Code and bringing it into force. This is unfortunately unlikely, but it is important that as many MPs as possible sign the motion.
Please email your MP asking them to sign EDM 240 if they haven’t already.
https://t.co/odTmOAIejk
@NadiaWhittomeMP@LolsysL Dear @NickTorfaen
If you genuinely believe trans people "deserve safety, dignity & respect" you SHOULD be signing and supporting @NadiaWhittomeMP motion otherwise your response becomes nothing more than performative politics
Thanks for the reminder!
For those MPs who haven’t yet signed the EDM to protect trans rights, please sign it!
Here it is: https://t.co/XjjTDitt7V
🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️
We have a once-in-a-generation chance to change the future of dementia. Add your name now to help end the devastation.
It will take a society to beat dementia. https://t.co/S3ijKX2nSd
If you are a c!s MP and sending out “Happy Pride” messages while not signing @NadiaWhittomeMP ‘s Early Day Motion to block trans apartheid - the segregation of trans people - then you don’t understand what #Pride is about 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
Andy Burnham says he "can't judge" if the Israeli military's crimes in Gaza are a genocide.
The experts already have.
A UN commission, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and leading rights orgs all agree: it's genocide.
Andy, why won't you call it what it is?
Out canvassing today in Makerfield with our fantastic candidate Sarah Wakefield who is winning everyone's heart with her easy charm and sharp mind. She underlines her commitment to tackling women's issues. And the local party are doing a fantastic job.
This tells you all you need to know...
Burnham wouldn't have Corbyn back in the party (if he applied), but he "would like to continue working with Simons," who was a key player in the Mandelson-McSweeney-Starmer project.
Burnham is business as usual. https://t.co/XJ6Hutr4of
My Muslim friends are LGBTQ+ allies 🏳️🌈
The women in my life are trans inclusive 🏳️⚧️
My Jewish friends are anti-genocide 🇵🇸
Twitter is not real life 🏳️⚧️💚🏳️🌈💚🇵🇸
We're going to have to repeat a lot that many Jewish people don't support Israel's genocide.
Criticism of the Israeli Government and their war crimes has nothing to do with who is or isn't Jewish.
To conflate them like this is both harmful and antisemitic.
Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes speaking against Israel
"I'm Jewish and l've never hidden that but I don't in my heart believe that Israel should have been brought into being because in order for it to be brought into being, other people had their lives and their lands taken away from them"
"They had a pink triangle sewn on their chests": the real story of gay men who were sent to concentration camps
It could all start with a complaint.
A neighbor.
A co-worker.
A friend.
Even a family member.
All it takes was someone to say you were gay.
And your life could end.
During the Nazi regime, thousands of men were persecuted simply for loving other men. Many were arrested under a law known as Section 175, used to criminalize relationships between men. (Holocaust)
But the worst came after the arrest.
When they arrived at the concentration camps, they were forced to use a symbol that marked them in front of all the other prisoners:
a pink triangle sewn on clothes. (HISTORY)
That little piece of cloth meant a sentence of constant humiliation.
I identified them.
Los aislaba.
I was turning them into targets.
Many survivors recounted that men with the pink triangle used to receive some of the most dangerous and brutal jobs inside the fields. They also suffered violence not only from the guards, but even from other prisoners. (The Holocaust)
Imagine waking up every morning knowing that everyone could immediately recognize why you were there.
No privacy.
No defense.
Hopeless.
Some were sent off for medical experiments.
Others have died by forced labour.
So many just disappeared without a trace. Historians estimate that thousands of gay men were sent to concentration camps and that the mortality rate was extremely high. (Wikipedia)
And perhaps the most devastating part of this whole story happened after the war.
Because when the fields were liberated, many homosexual survivors weren't even recognized as victims.
The same law that had been used to incarcerate them continued to exist for decades. Some men were persecuted again even after surviving the Nazi horror. (Holocaust)
While other survivors could tell their story, many gay men had to go back into hiding.
Return to the silence.
Return to the fear.
And that's why the pink triangle ended up becoming something unexpected years later.
What had been created to humiliate and dehumanize ended up transforming into a symbol of memory, resistance and dignity for generations to come. (HISTORY)
Because behind every triangle there was something that regimes never managed to completely destroy:
a person who just wanted to love without fear.
"It's really important that people have the chance to vote for candidates that they want to in any election”
Unlike @carolinelucas, Sarah Wakefield gets it that #Makerfield voters deserve a real democratic choice, not a backroom stitch up
Vote Green 💚
Alongside colleagues, I have tabled a motion to disapprove the Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations. We cannot support it, and we have a responsibility to our trans constituents to resist it.
This motion is currently the only available mechanism through which Parliament can reject the EHRC’s Code of Practice; if it is debated and passed within the 40-day scrutiny window, it would prevent the Code from being issued by the EHRC and coming into force.
Please email your MP asking them to sign EDM 240.
The Code will exclude trans people from services and facilities that they have long used without issue, putting them at increased risk of harassment and violence, and effectively pushing them out of public life.
It ushers in an era of enforced segregation for trans people, the policing of which will be outsourced to service providers, including businesses, charities and public bodies.
In the statement to the House of Commons yesterday, the Minister even suggested that where members of the public are unsure of someone’s gender within a single-sex facility, “most people will have the common sense to step in where necessary or, if they are concerned, to alert a member of staff.”
Meanwhile, this guidance does not give clarity and confidence to organisations that want to be trans-inclusive. Its impact also extends beyond the rights of trans people. The government’s own Equality Impact Assessment warns that “women who are considered masculine may face greater scrutiny” and that disabled people could face adverse impacts.
The Code represents a profound rollback of rights, which will affect trans people directly and erode the principles of inclusion, dignity and equality upon which all our rights depend.
This guidance must not become statutory; the government should withdraw it and instead legislate to clarify and protect trans people’s rights, privacy and inclusion.
https://t.co/odTmOAIejk