I also agree, with the caveat that I don’t really accept there are “good intentions” to a No Debate stance - I think there are authoritarian motives at the root of this. It’s worth pointing out that most of the NHS Fife staff who gave evidence at the tribunal are not young, and were not “brought up” with a scepticism towards binary sexuality: TribunalTweets’ coverage showed several struggling to explain actions which their beliefs had informed and which showed total disregard for or, being ‘kind’, ignorance of basic managerial procedures.
I agree. The critical point is the lack of discussion....the failure to include everyone in the debate and make all feel valued. The way the issue has been forced by politicians and Organisations like NHS Fife suggests their are some very intolerant people running things...and some complete dimwits.
As a former nurse, both in hospital and in the community, this resonates with me from the perspective of the sheer lack of discussion with the people affected. It is really shocking. As is the introduction into evidence of WhatsApp chats which had no bearing on the issue.
One of the main reasons that I left nursing completely was the fact that , in spite of being fairly senior, we were increasingly told what to do. No discussion, just get on with it.
This is very understanding of Sandie Peggie, but very absent is the perspective of Beth Upton. Surely if issues like this are to be resolved through discussion, then both are needed?
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that discussion is always possible. Nor is it necessarily even acceptable, when the issue up for 'discussion' is whether a person is entitled to their identity.
Well of course someone is entitled to their identity. But we all have to negotiate space in the workplace. It’s not an issue for most of us as we don’t have to share intimate space like this
Are women entitled to their privacy and to assert their own assessment of risk, or not? There's a clear conflict of rights here, and it's women who are expected to give everything up, and people claiming a subjective feeling of identity who are being given everything. This cannot work out.
This is the first time I have read ( or heard) any detail about the changing faculties provided to doctors and nurses respectively at NHS Fife’s Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
Each time I read a story about that Employment Tribunal case in Dundee I expected to read whether or not male and female doctors, nurses, catering, cleaning and maintenance staff had separate or shared changing/ shower rooms but I was always disappointed by that lack of diligence.
I remained surprised that Dr Upton’s doctor colleagues had not been, at least, investigated for making him feel unsafe in their own changing room or rooms.
While I can understand the idea abstractly of someone managing to compartmentalise racist jokes from being racist during work hours, I don't think in practice that's something i'd put a lot of faith in, or expect my employer to put a lot of faith in. Racist jokes still reinforce ideas and prop up racial minorities as punching bags, and I think the repercussions of that type of behaviour can't really be neatly tucked away.
I find it very hard to be sympathetic to Peggie, neither party having a say in what bathroom they used and the lack of communication is something that effected both poorly absolutely, but Upton was likened to a rapist. Peggie was not. To be completely honest I don't think Upton being trans is a particularly important part of Peggie being fired. You don't liken your colleague to a rapist for using the bathroom and then get kept on, no matter how they identify.
Yes it was upsetting for Upton for sure. I think a conversation should have been had with the nurse before this point. I guess they would have raised the Isla Bryson case in that convo. It caused a lot of public anger - before going to jail I think Bryson enrolled in a college course on make up or st. She’s an example of someone using the blurring of gender boundaries to their advantage no? But Upton is not one of those people. She’s an individual who was keen to get on with and be accepted by her colleagues. So that’s the kind of conversation that someone in management needed to be brave enough to have with the nurses I think.
Upton is not "keen to get on with" his colleagues. I will not call that cruel individual "she". He's a typical heterosexual misogynist who demands his desires be acknowledged, or else, in all circumstances, including where it hurts others. A decent human being who is a male transsexual (there are many male transsexuals who loath Upton) would accept that a woman has a need for safety and privacy when undressing and know that women don't get undressed around men they not intimate with. A decent male transsexual would argue for separate changing facilities. For God's sake it's in the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, because forcing women prisoners to get naked around men is seen as a war crime.
Men telling women that they are not allowed to say "no" to men's demands is the oldest tale of all. Women supporting this treatment of other women are fools.
I honestly doubt Peggie would have raised the case in conversation with a manager etc. It would have been embarrassing to say out loud that you view your colleague as a possible rapist because they are trans. There's a reason Peggie was being racist in a private group chat. That's the type of vitriol people tend to save for situations where they feel they can browbeat minorities. It's not a coincidence that it was when Peggie and Upton were more alone that Isla Bryson came up. That's something I think Peggie couldn't have said with her whole chest in front of anyone else
Isla Bryson being trans didn't really give her any advantage in my opinion. For one, she raped those two women (and was accused of raping her wife) prior to transitioning, she was actively presenting as a man, with a mans name, and a mans body. The idea that her transitioning and changing her name was the reason that classmates were unaware of her at the time upcoming court appearance(she wasn't even convicted when she was taking that course) is also flawed, it's not like if she had kept her old name then she would have had to tell everyone she was a rapist. Or that if she was a man they would have had more reason to look up her incredibly common deadname to check. She looked and acted like everyone else in the brief time she took that course.
It was also only after learning about her convictions that her classmates said they felt violated, which is an incredibly reasonable way to feel about finding out your classmate is a rapist, but also shows that it wasn't her being trans or "blurring the gender boundaries" that caused those feelings. It was her being a rapist. One of the most frustrating things about the Isla Bryson case is the way it's been co-opted into a discussion about whether or not trans people are predatory. When in reality the people saying they were shocked about Isla, aren't saying that in regards to her being trans. There could be a conversation about whether people on trial for rape charges should have to disclose that to people they interact with. Because that is the crux of what caused the other women on her course distress.
I think equating blurring gender norms with something that could give rapists an advantage is a rough statement. To a degree I'd agree with you, trans-people are more likely to be targets of rape and sexual assault then cis-people. There's a very good (though a bit old) study about this by The William's Institute. But I don't think most people would read the statement and assume a trans-person as the victim in that scenario unfortunately. It puts a lot of the blame of sexual assault on a immutable human trait like gender presentation, I don't really see how that's any different to saying someone dressing a certain way meant they were asking for it etc. It sort of blows something really quite minor about a person/group of people out of proportion when people tie nastiness to something like that.
Well there are other examples of this going on - not by genuinely trans folk but eg there’s a court case going on just now of a farmer who attacked another farmer with a chainsaw in a row over a tractor. The attacker now says he’s female and his crime is being recorded as committed by a woman. I think we need to accept that it happens. It’s not just rapists that’s just one case. It’s ok to accept that dibs guys do this - whether or not they gain an actual advantage is a different question from their perception that they might. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accept trans people and I think the nurses could have been introduced to Upton as an individual.
Honestly that case sounds like another one where the gender identity of the party doesn't really matter. Does the accused being a woman really change anything for anyone involved? Not particularly. So why not take it at face value and respect it? I'm not going to pretend that criminals who are trans are not "genuinely" trans because that kind of implies this idea of you can only be "genuinely" trans if you follow the law, or my morals.
Donna, the transwoman who sliced off two of the other farmers fingers with a chainsaw and drove a tractor through a fence. Is the most important thing to the court that she's trans? It feels absurd to centre someone's minority status in a conversation about assault. It's not like oestrogen made her mangle that poor dude's arm. They're completely disconnected concepts.
It's also not like misgendering is a similar threat if Donna was a cis-woman who had committed a crime, people don't go out of their way to misgender cis-people who do even much worse things then Donna either. It's a fundamental double-standard that trans criminals get misgendered but cis criminals don't have to worry about that.
Being trans is not a privilege in any scenario, and there are systematic barriers both in and outside of the legal system that discriminate against trans people. So it's also not like I need to try and even the scales here by being actively discriminatory, even if there was some guys who thought being a transwoman would be their ticket out of jail somehow, that's not really my problem is it? Why would I make it other trans people's problems by making how they identify the issue of the day?
A woman views a man who demands to get naked in her female changing space as a potential rapist, or voyeur, or exhibitionist, simply because he is a male. She's not intimate with that man, and he has no right to cross the boundary she sets. The man's trans identity is irrelevant, and - as a matter of objective risk - male transsexuals offend in the same way and at the same rate as males generally. A woman will go along with the fiction that he's a she in the office, on the street, in the pub, but not in a place where she's vulnerable because she's undressing or sleeping.
Upton did have a choice, he's a male and could use the male changing room. But his ego requires female submission. Same old sexism. The fact that some male transsexuals demand that women give up their privacy and safety to validate their desire to be seen as a woman (they are not women) is the ultimate misogyny that is driving women to fight back. We can simply have gender neutral changing rooms and female changing rooms. But that's not what these narcissistic men want.
I also agree, with the caveat that I don’t really accept there are “good intentions” to a No Debate stance - I think there are authoritarian motives at the root of this. It’s worth pointing out that most of the NHS Fife staff who gave evidence at the tribunal are not young, and were not “brought up” with a scepticism towards binary sexuality: TribunalTweets’ coverage showed several struggling to explain actions which their beliefs had informed and which showed total disregard for or, being ‘kind’, ignorance of basic managerial procedures.
I agree. The critical point is the lack of discussion....the failure to include everyone in the debate and make all feel valued. The way the issue has been forced by politicians and Organisations like NHS Fife suggests their are some very intolerant people running things...and some complete dimwits.
As a former nurse, both in hospital and in the community, this resonates with me from the perspective of the sheer lack of discussion with the people affected. It is really shocking. As is the introduction into evidence of WhatsApp chats which had no bearing on the issue.
One of the main reasons that I left nursing completely was the fact that , in spite of being fairly senior, we were increasingly told what to do. No discussion, just get on with it.
Agree 100% if discussion had happened then perhaps agreement would have been reached to build cubicles for ppl to have more privacy.
This is very understanding of Sandie Peggie, but very absent is the perspective of Beth Upton. Surely if issues like this are to be resolved through discussion, then both are needed?
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that discussion is always possible. Nor is it necessarily even acceptable, when the issue up for 'discussion' is whether a person is entitled to their identity.
Well of course someone is entitled to their identity. But we all have to negotiate space in the workplace. It’s not an issue for most of us as we don’t have to share intimate space like this
Are women entitled to their privacy and to assert their own assessment of risk, or not? There's a clear conflict of rights here, and it's women who are expected to give everything up, and people claiming a subjective feeling of identity who are being given everything. This cannot work out.
This is the first time I have read ( or heard) any detail about the changing faculties provided to doctors and nurses respectively at NHS Fife’s Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
Each time I read a story about that Employment Tribunal case in Dundee I expected to read whether or not male and female doctors, nurses, catering, cleaning and maintenance staff had separate or shared changing/ shower rooms but I was always disappointed by that lack of diligence.
I remained surprised that Dr Upton’s doctor colleagues had not been, at least, investigated for making him feel unsafe in their own changing room or rooms.
Yes I know - I’ve read comments suggesting that Dr Upton chose to go there rather than use the doctors’ mess but as I understand that’s not the case
While I can understand the idea abstractly of someone managing to compartmentalise racist jokes from being racist during work hours, I don't think in practice that's something i'd put a lot of faith in, or expect my employer to put a lot of faith in. Racist jokes still reinforce ideas and prop up racial minorities as punching bags, and I think the repercussions of that type of behaviour can't really be neatly tucked away.
I find it very hard to be sympathetic to Peggie, neither party having a say in what bathroom they used and the lack of communication is something that effected both poorly absolutely, but Upton was likened to a rapist. Peggie was not. To be completely honest I don't think Upton being trans is a particularly important part of Peggie being fired. You don't liken your colleague to a rapist for using the bathroom and then get kept on, no matter how they identify.
Yes it was upsetting for Upton for sure. I think a conversation should have been had with the nurse before this point. I guess they would have raised the Isla Bryson case in that convo. It caused a lot of public anger - before going to jail I think Bryson enrolled in a college course on make up or st. She’s an example of someone using the blurring of gender boundaries to their advantage no? But Upton is not one of those people. She’s an individual who was keen to get on with and be accepted by her colleagues. So that’s the kind of conversation that someone in management needed to be brave enough to have with the nurses I think.
Upton is not "keen to get on with" his colleagues. I will not call that cruel individual "she". He's a typical heterosexual misogynist who demands his desires be acknowledged, or else, in all circumstances, including where it hurts others. A decent human being who is a male transsexual (there are many male transsexuals who loath Upton) would accept that a woman has a need for safety and privacy when undressing and know that women don't get undressed around men they not intimate with. A decent male transsexual would argue for separate changing facilities. For God's sake it's in the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, because forcing women prisoners to get naked around men is seen as a war crime.
Men telling women that they are not allowed to say "no" to men's demands is the oldest tale of all. Women supporting this treatment of other women are fools.
I honestly doubt Peggie would have raised the case in conversation with a manager etc. It would have been embarrassing to say out loud that you view your colleague as a possible rapist because they are trans. There's a reason Peggie was being racist in a private group chat. That's the type of vitriol people tend to save for situations where they feel they can browbeat minorities. It's not a coincidence that it was when Peggie and Upton were more alone that Isla Bryson came up. That's something I think Peggie couldn't have said with her whole chest in front of anyone else
Isla Bryson being trans didn't really give her any advantage in my opinion. For one, she raped those two women (and was accused of raping her wife) prior to transitioning, she was actively presenting as a man, with a mans name, and a mans body. The idea that her transitioning and changing her name was the reason that classmates were unaware of her at the time upcoming court appearance(she wasn't even convicted when she was taking that course) is also flawed, it's not like if she had kept her old name then she would have had to tell everyone she was a rapist. Or that if she was a man they would have had more reason to look up her incredibly common deadname to check. She looked and acted like everyone else in the brief time she took that course.
It was also only after learning about her convictions that her classmates said they felt violated, which is an incredibly reasonable way to feel about finding out your classmate is a rapist, but also shows that it wasn't her being trans or "blurring the gender boundaries" that caused those feelings. It was her being a rapist. One of the most frustrating things about the Isla Bryson case is the way it's been co-opted into a discussion about whether or not trans people are predatory. When in reality the people saying they were shocked about Isla, aren't saying that in regards to her being trans. There could be a conversation about whether people on trial for rape charges should have to disclose that to people they interact with. Because that is the crux of what caused the other women on her course distress.
I think equating blurring gender norms with something that could give rapists an advantage is a rough statement. To a degree I'd agree with you, trans-people are more likely to be targets of rape and sexual assault then cis-people. There's a very good (though a bit old) study about this by The William's Institute. But I don't think most people would read the statement and assume a trans-person as the victim in that scenario unfortunately. It puts a lot of the blame of sexual assault on a immutable human trait like gender presentation, I don't really see how that's any different to saying someone dressing a certain way meant they were asking for it etc. It sort of blows something really quite minor about a person/group of people out of proportion when people tie nastiness to something like that.
Well there are other examples of this going on - not by genuinely trans folk but eg there’s a court case going on just now of a farmer who attacked another farmer with a chainsaw in a row over a tractor. The attacker now says he’s female and his crime is being recorded as committed by a woman. I think we need to accept that it happens. It’s not just rapists that’s just one case. It’s ok to accept that dibs guys do this - whether or not they gain an actual advantage is a different question from their perception that they might. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accept trans people and I think the nurses could have been introduced to Upton as an individual.
Honestly that case sounds like another one where the gender identity of the party doesn't really matter. Does the accused being a woman really change anything for anyone involved? Not particularly. So why not take it at face value and respect it? I'm not going to pretend that criminals who are trans are not "genuinely" trans because that kind of implies this idea of you can only be "genuinely" trans if you follow the law, or my morals.
Donna, the transwoman who sliced off two of the other farmers fingers with a chainsaw and drove a tractor through a fence. Is the most important thing to the court that she's trans? It feels absurd to centre someone's minority status in a conversation about assault. It's not like oestrogen made her mangle that poor dude's arm. They're completely disconnected concepts.
It's also not like misgendering is a similar threat if Donna was a cis-woman who had committed a crime, people don't go out of their way to misgender cis-people who do even much worse things then Donna either. It's a fundamental double-standard that trans criminals get misgendered but cis criminals don't have to worry about that.
Being trans is not a privilege in any scenario, and there are systematic barriers both in and outside of the legal system that discriminate against trans people. So it's also not like I need to try and even the scales here by being actively discriminatory, even if there was some guys who thought being a transwoman would be their ticket out of jail somehow, that's not really my problem is it? Why would I make it other trans people's problems by making how they identify the issue of the day?
A woman views a man who demands to get naked in her female changing space as a potential rapist, or voyeur, or exhibitionist, simply because he is a male. She's not intimate with that man, and he has no right to cross the boundary she sets. The man's trans identity is irrelevant, and - as a matter of objective risk - male transsexuals offend in the same way and at the same rate as males generally. A woman will go along with the fiction that he's a she in the office, on the street, in the pub, but not in a place where she's vulnerable because she's undressing or sleeping.
Upton did have a choice, he's a male and could use the male changing room. But his ego requires female submission. Same old sexism. The fact that some male transsexuals demand that women give up their privacy and safety to validate their desire to be seen as a woman (they are not women) is the ultimate misogyny that is driving women to fight back. We can simply have gender neutral changing rooms and female changing rooms. But that's not what these narcissistic men want.