Why Was This Ever Considered Appropriate In The First Place?

A rape crisis charity at the heart of a row over whether trans women can attend support sessions for women has announced it is launching a new service for women which will exclude transgender participants.

It beggars belief that this is news, because who could have ever believed that this would have been considered normal in the first place? 

In 2022 a woman known as "Sarah" told BBC News she was suing Brighton-based Survivors' Network because she felt uncomfortable talking about her own abuse in front of a trans woman who had joined the group.

For ‘trans woman’ read. ‘Man in womanface’ as if a rape victim would ever feel comfortable in the presence of such!

The charity, which provides support services for survivors of sexual violence in Sussex, says it will now run a new group for biological women who live as women, alongside its existing meetings that allow trans and non-binary people to take part.

Because the risk of being sued has now got too great, not because they’ve come to their senses, of course!  

Sarah told the BBC in 2002 she had been sexually abused as a child and then raped when in her 20s. She had approached the group for support after coming into contact with the man she said had attacked her. "I was finding it really hard to cope," she said at the time. She said she had found the sessions helpful and supportive at first. She called them a "safe space". However, a trans woman - a biological male who identified as a woman - started attending the support group for victims of sexual abuse and assault. Sarah says the trans woman presented as typically male in the way she looked and dressed, and Sarah felt uncomfortable in her presence. "I don't trust men because I was raped by a man," she said at the time. "I don't necessarily trust that men are always who they say they are." Sarah stopped attending the sessions.

And you’re wise to, because these days, some of them aren’t. And there are other women bound and determined to assist them in this endeavour!

I Love A Heartwarming Story...

An Upper East Side café where baristas quit in protest over the Jewish owner's support of Israel is now busier than ever with customers lined up around the block to show their support.

The owner of Caffe Aronne, Aaron Dahan, was left short-staffed Tuesday morning after his baristas quit on him when he addressed the 'Free Palestine' pins they wore to work.

His gaff, his rules, kiddies!Don't like it, find another job.  

'Our staff was young. They think they know everything, liberal, college-educated,' Dahan, who is Jewish, told The New York Post on Tuesday.'They think we're supporting genocide, we're supporting colonialism. They know the keywords but they don't really know what they mean,' he added.

Sadly, Aaron, 'college educated' is likely to have been the issue here, rather than, as you might have considered years ago, a potential help. 

Before they quit, Dahan made an effort to sit down with his baristas and speak with them about their differing views. 'We knew our staff. We knew they were thinking these things. I said, 'Let's go for dinner. Let's sit. Let's ask questions. Let's learn. Let's realize that we're not all here trying to kill each other,' Dahan said.

You can't talk to people like this, you can't explain anything to them. It's been drummed into them that being righteous is a goal all by itself.  

To Take Advantage Of The Offer, You Need A DeLorean...

...or a TARDIS:

Thousands of Royal Mail stamps are set to be unusable withing months as a new system is introduced, with some left set to be thousands out of pocket.

Brits have been warned that their ‘1st’ and 2nd’ class stamps will be unusable from January 2023 as Royal Mail begin rolling out a new barcode system to replace the traditional stamp system.

Ooh, a new computerise system, we know how good the Royal Mail is at that! 

To help with the change, Royal Mail is offering a swap system. The “Swap Out” scheme will be running from 31 March 2022 to 31 March 2023.

Wait! *checks calendar* Errr.... 

Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis has long suggested people stock up on stamps to beat the annual price increases.

Should have kept your mouth shut, Martin! 

H/T: IanJ via email

But You're Up Against People Who Don't Recognise 'Good Faith', Zoe...

...here I was, arguing with friends about language: the example was raised of a training course for doulas (freelance, new age birth partners). A trans woman wanted to join the class, and while the teaching doula had reservations, she assented.

I didn’t get what the reservations were, to be honest: a doula is privately engaged – if you had a problem with a trans woman, you simply wouldn’t hire one.

Or bake that cake..? 

The only objection I could divine was if you thought anyone who wasn’t a cis woman didn’t belong around childbirth; but that space has been unisex for years.

Yes, but the men there aren't pretending to be women, are they? 

But back to the language problem: my friends told me the trans novice doula had gone on to object to the word “mother”, and this made the class impossible.

Of course he did. What did anyone think would happen as soon as he got a foot in the door? 

I disagree.

Well, of course you do, because you're not very bright, are you? 

It’s true that, in a medical context, trans men don’t want to be addressed as mothers, since it forces them to choose between their identity as an individual and as a parent, but it doesn’t follow that they want to police all of us into never again mentioning our mothers.

You've just been shown how a desire to be inclusive has backfired, with the inch-taker now demanding their mile. You've seen how language is policed, by first protest and then violence.  You'd have to be wilfully blind or stupid not to see the direction of travel here... 

Sometimes language does have to change.

And sometimes it doesn't. This is once such time. 

The important thing, always, is to operate in good faith.

The important thing is to realise when your opponent has no such qualms, Zoe.